Underground
by gotc147
Summary: Rachael Roth is back in town after months of absence and everybody is judging her by her actions on a single night, what happens when she gets behind the wheel again? RobXRae. Rated for violence, suggestive themes and language.
1. Return

Chapter 1: Return

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

* * *

The past months had not been kind to her. Her 2008 Mustang GT coupe had been totaled in its second race, it was her fault though; she hadn't taken the proper test runs to get used to the machine so she ended up down-shifting too early and blowing the engine, and it didn't help of course that she had only the stock brakes installed on the car, not enough to stop it from careening into the brick wall on the side of the road, it was still a wonder how she was able to walk away from that. She wasn't going to make the same mistake with her new car, the one she was driving right now: A brand new 2008 Dodge Charger SRT-8. The color of the car was jet black with a chrome finish, very shiny. On top of that, dark red window tints and the custom body kit made the car wider by almost two inches and longer by more than three inchs, what with the "extreme front end" as it was called, it was basically just a bigger front and rear bumper that was pushed out from the rest of the body, and when you think of it, that's about all the custom fenders did too. The added rims were five-spoke and treated with a silver chrome finish, adding more eye candy to the car. The custom suspension pushed the wheels out and compensated for the added width while adding stability to the car and lowering its center of gravity. Modifications under the hood included a high-performance intake shaft that had been laced with a special lubricant, making cleaning the thing an event that happened less often and added an extra thirteen horsepower to the engine. The engine itself was modified with aftermarket tubes, an electronic fuel injection system, eight custom pistons, a custom driveshaft, a treated block and a liquid cooling system. The transmission was a heavily modified six-gear stick shift with a high performance clutch and special fluid. The first-party muffler added power as well as sound, giving the car that old-school muscle car music. The nitrous injection system wasn't a bad touch either. The aftermarket spoiler added to the aerodynamic efficiency of the car and increased down force, it wasn't just there to look cool. All told, the cost of the car itself, the modifications and the insurance from the special agency came up to a very hefty two-hundred sixty-eight thousand dollars, but with a total horsepower of six-hundred seventy-five, along with five-hundred ninety foot pounds of torque, a top speed of one-hundred ninety and a zero to sixty acceleration speed of 3.3 seconds, it was well worth it.

But money wasn't a problem for her, ever since her father was killed when his private jet crashed, all his money went to her, and there was plenty of it. It was a good thing too, racing was her passion but she was always turned down to race in Le Mans as her car had illegal modifications, and she wasn't about to take them off.

People weren't going to recognize her in this new car, but they will recognize her, she hadn't changed much since that faithful day she was forced to skip town and find a new, temporary home. She remembered it like it was yesterday…

* * *

_FLASHBACK_

There were five other cars in the race that was due to begin in just a few minutes and two of them didn't look like they were going to pose much of a threat to her. One of them was a Mazda RX-8, it had scissor doors but that was probably the most high-end thing on it, it had a few engine tweaks and a slightly modified transmission with a body kit and custom rims but it was obvious the owner-a young girl named Jessica, didn't have the funds to support her hobby. The second one, a Nissan Sentra, had rear suicide doors with an unimpressive front bumper and a swapped out engine, instead of a one-hundred forty horsepower I4, the car was equipped with a two-hundred eighty-five horsepower V6, and other than a custom suspension, there was nothing else on the car that could put it in the category of "tuner." The next car wasn't meant to be a tuner at all though, it was an exotic, a Lotus Elise, yellow with green racing stripes but that was it, not an engine mod to speak of. Put this car on a winding narrow track and it was excellent, a track with a lot of straight-aways, not so much.

The other two cars would probably be a problem. One of them was a Lamborghini Gallardo with a custom transmission and turbo intake as well as high-performance belts and pistons, couple that with the beautiful BBS rims and teal paintjob with an iridescent finish and you have one mean road machine. The second car, the only muscle car in the race, was a seven-hundred thirty horsepower 1970 Dodge Challenger HEMI. The car was scary fast, it had been custom built to race, outfitted with the best tires and suspension and the spoiler made handling even better.

Rachael Roth, also known as Raven by her friends and rivals was driving a 1993 Mazda RX-7, it's age was irrelevant as the car had been well taken care of and upgraded to a six-speed transmission and every first party performance upgrade you could get, couple that with the body kit, rims, spoiler, vinyl pattern of black dragon and cherry red metallic paint job, and you had a flashy and also very powerful machine.

The racers lined up in two lines beside each other, Rachael was second in the left line with the Challenger behind her and the Sentra in front of her, the RX-8 was next to her and the Lamborghini was in front of Jessica, leaving the Lotus next to the Challenger. Rachael knew right off that the Lamborghini was at an advantage, he was at the front of the pack and his more powerful competitors were stuck behind a poor excuse for a street racer. The race initiator, a small blond, stepped between the Lamborghini and Nissan, she raised her hands, paused, then quickly motioned her entire upper body downward, telling the racers that the race had begun. Rachael's assumption of the Lamborghini's advantage was worse than she had predicted, not only did it plow off the line like a bullet, but the driver of the Sentra didn't know how to drive, stalling his car after only a few feet and nearly getting rear-ended by Rachael. "Fuck" She cursed, turning to the right and going around the Sentra as the Challenger went left, effectively leaving them at the back half of the pack. The Lotus turned out to have a very good driver behind its wheel, the car was quick and nimble, but get it on a straight-up race and it lost its advantage.

Rachael tried to pass on the right but nearly ended up getting her front left fender busted up as the Lotus swerved to block the pass. This however left him open on the left, and the driver of the Challenger took it as an opportunity, he put the older car into fourth gear and sped past.

The Gallardo was hundreds of feet ahead of the second place driver-the Challenger, who was hundreds of feet ahead of the Lotus and Rachael, who were battling for 3rd place.

Rachael rear-ended the Lotus hard enough to knock the RX-7's custom bumper loose; the Lotus suffered only chipped paint because of its one-piece design. The driver of it however, panicked at the sudden jolt and lost control just long enough for Rachael to pass him. She saw in her rear-view that the Lotus was able to recover but she had bigger things to worry about, the lead car was nearly a fifth of a mile ahead and she had ground that needed covering, but was forced to slow down for the first turn, a right turn. It was about a seventy degree corner and she took it at over eighty miles per hour at the top of third gear. It was a close one, she didn't go off the road but the turn was wide, the good news was as soon as she was pointed in the right direction again, she dropped the clutch and shifted into fourth. Just as she did so, she saw the Lamborghini take the second turn, a left turn, and disappear, followed by the Challenger. She was just at the point of having to shift into fifth when she reached the second turn; she shifted down to second to take the sharp turn, going only about thirty-five MPH, but she managed to keep close to the left this time and make the corner tight. She quickly accelerated out of the corner and was able to close the distance between her and the Challenger, urging to pass. The driver of the muscle car wasn't about to loose his place without a fight though, and swerved to avoid being passed

The maneuvers the driver of the Challenger was pulling was making the distance between them and the Lamborghini bigger, giving the Italian car a commanding lead by the time Rachael was able to feint a pass on the left and get by on the right. The Lamborghini had just pulled out of the fifth turn (right) when Rachael was entering the fourth (right), followed a little too closely by the Challenger, apparently the driver didn't appreciate being passed as he rear-ended Rachael as he pulled out of the corner. The heavy muscle car slammed so hard into the small Mazda that the rear bumper was ripped clean off and dragged under the Dodge, flattening its front tires and taking him out of the race.

Rachael's damaged car was still going strong as she entered the fifth turn and pulled out perfectly. The Lamborghini had made some distance but had to abruptly slam on his brakes to avoid colliding with one of the few cars that was on the road at four in the morning. Rachael pushed the import well past one-hundred to close the distance. The Gallardo had recovered from its near miss and was back in the race before Rachael could get past it. Now the Lamborghini had a very determined Mazda crawling up its tailpipes, the driver of the exotic floored the accelerator but in panic of loosing his lead, mis-shifted into fifth instead of third, slowing the car's acceleration considerably and allowing Rachael to pass by on the left after nearly rear-ending the Lamborghini. The Gallardo's driver corrected his mistake and was soon on Rachael's rear. The two were coming to the final turn to the left and the entire race depended on who took the turn better. Rachael entered the turn well, swinging the rear of her car along the outside of the turn. The Lamborghini did the same but made the turn only a little bit wider than Rachael, before the driver could figure out what he did wrong; Rachael had crossed the finish line.

Rachael stopped her car but before she got out it was like a flash, she didn't even see where they came from, all she knew was that she and the driver of the Lamborghini were now surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of cops, helicopters and all. Both drivers started driving in any direction they could to get away. The Lamborghini ended up plowing right into a police Durango and Rachael wasn't much better off, everywhere she looked there were cops, there was a small alley within reach but there was a Lincoln Continental blocking it, she decided her only chance was to smash through the car and try to escape that way, she pointed her RX-7 at the Lincoln and gunned it, just when she thought her car was going to be totaled, the Lincoln moved aside and allowed her to pass.

Confused beyond belief, she looked in her rear view mirror and saw that the Lincoln was not allowing the police to follow, whoever was in that car deliberately let her get away at the expense of his or her own freedom but she couldn't dwell on it now, there was still the matter of the helicopter, or so she thought. She looked back but saw that the helicopter was not chasing her, it was holding its position overhead, surely it had seen her escape? She looked around for other helicopters, but there were none, it seemed like the cops had abandoned her completely, which wasn't a bad thing, but it was just too convenient. Rachael then got a text message on her cell "The safehouse has been raided, get out of town" is what it said, and she did exactly what it told her to do.

_END FLASHBACK_

* * *

Now she had been away for months and figured it was finally safe to return home, but now, she wanted to find out what happened, and to make good on her cowardice from that night.


	2. Asumptions

Chapter 2: Assumptions

* * *

Rachael's overpowered Charger made its way through the streets of the city at an acceptable speed of about thirty-five miles per hour. Her destination was one of the three airports in the city, and it wasn't the commercial one. It happened to be Clancy Municipal Airfield, owned and operated by a man named Richard Grayson. The airport itself wasn't overly large, it had a tower and three runways, two of them parallel to each other facing close enough to north and south, one of them stretching about four-thousand feet, the other being nearly six-thousand. The other runway facing roughly east to west and being five-thousand two-hundred thiry feet long, none of the runways touched each other. The largest airplane you'll see land here is a business or privately owned Regional Jet. Although the two longer runways are said to be long enough and wide enough to handle smaller commercial jets such as 737's and A320's, you'll never see one at this airport unless out of emergency.

Rachael pulled into the parking lot and got out of her car, making sure the doors were locked and the alarm was set. She noticed three other out of the ordinary cars there, a dark grey Nissan 350Z, body kit, spoiler, rims and vinyl's that would make a car from "The Fast and the Furious" look bad. An Aston Martin Vanquish that looked as if it were ripped right out of James Bond's "Die Another Day." And a green 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, Rachael also noticed that it was the HEMI version. She walked over to the door to the FBO and entered. She made a left turn to a hall and stopped at the second door on the right, typed in a four-digit code and opened the door; she was immediately stopped by an airport employee. "Excuse me ma'am! I don't know how you know the code to that door but you can't pass through" the heavy set man said.

"It's ok, I know the owner and I need to speak with him" Rachael replied.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I can't let you through, let me see your identification" even airports that didn't get commercial service had levels of security measures. This man was new to the job as Rachael didn't recognize him and it didn't help that her security clearance had expired in the time she was away.

"Why don't you call Richard up here then? He'll tell you who I am" Rachael said, rolling her eyes.

The man stared at the young woman for a few awkward seconds before pulling his radio out of its belt hook and radioing Richard. "Rich, I got a young lady here who's trying to get upstairs, she's asked for you. Should I let her pass?"

"Let me get over there" Came a voice from the radio. After a few seconds, a young man emerged from the upstairs area. He looked at Rachael with a look of disbelief before saying: "Raven! It's been too long!" He quickly embraced the slightly younger girl in a hug.

Rachael returned the hug. "Hey Rich, it's good to see you again."

"Where've you been all this time?" Richard asked. "And what exactly happened that night you took off?" Rachael pulled back and hung her head, and Richard took the hint. "It's ok Mark" he said as he led Rachael through the security door. The two walked down a hall lined with four doors on each side, Richard directed Rachael to the last door on the left, a good sized room, maybe twenty feet by fifteen feet complete with a "dry" minibar and a poker table. The table had three people at it, two men and a woman, one of the men was very tall and muscular, his name was Victor. The other man was much smaller, only about five foot seven and was pretty thin, his name was Garfield. The woman was a fairly tall redhead, she was also very toned and obviously didn't mind showing it by the way she was dressed, her name was Kori.

"Well, well… Look who it is" Garfield said unenthusiastically, showing his two cards, "Trip tens," revealing his pocket tens

"So Raven… Where you been these past months?" Victor said. "Two pair," revealing his jack and nine.

"Straight, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack" Kori said showing her seven and eight just before pulling the poker chips to her pile, ignoring Rachael completely.

Richard didn't like how they greeted his close friend. "You know, you guys could stand to be a bit more-" Rachael cut him off.

"It's ok Rich, I kind of deserve it."

"No you don't, if anybody else were in your position and that happened they would've done the same thing" Richard had a point.

"I don't think anybody in this city is going to be happy to see me except you" Rachael commented. She knew that Richard would be the only one to accept her back before she even decided to return to the city.

"Well you're free to use the airport as a safehouse, you remember the rules about using another racer's safehouse right?" Richard asked.

"Right, lead the cops away and nothing in or out without permission" Rachael replied, confirming she remembered the protocol.

"Good, get your car, I'll open the main gate for you, make a left and it's the big hanger on the left" Richard said as he left the room and entered the door at the very end of the hall. Rachael exited the security area, into the parking lot and got into her car. She drove through the main gate onto the tarmac, around what looked like a brand new Beechcraft King Air and then into the large hanger, which had been converted into more of a garage. There were lifts for getting under cars to make repairs or modifications, large toolboxes and everything else you'd find in a garage, there wasn't an airplane to be found though. The hanger contained quite a few vehicles, all of which belonged to Richard. There was a red, 1995 Lamborghini Diablo VT, a black, 2006 Ferrari F430, a midnight blue, 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer EVO MR, and a silver, 1969 Dodge Charger R/T just to name a few. All of them were tricked out both in visual and performance areas, but how much so in the latter was known only to Richard. Rachael picked a fairly empty corner, away from Richard's cars and equipment. She entered the same hall she had been in moments ago right from the hanger, only this time from the opposite end. "That'll be your room" Richard said, pointing to the second door on her left.

The room was unimpressive; a white sofa against the far wall, a decent TV opposite it, a good sized refrigerator sat on the right side of the room with a toaster and microwave on a table next to it, and on the opposite side of the refrigerator was a dresser with a mirror on it. Other than those simple things, the room was bare, but it would do just fine.

Rachael went back out to her car and opened the trunk. Most people who could afford it had some kind of sound or video system installed in the trunk, and Rachael was no exception. She had a forty-two inch widescreen TV bolted to the bottom of the trunk lid so when it was open the TV would be displayed perfectly for viewing. For sound, she had six twelve inch speakers lining the sides of the trunk, three on each side and in the very back she had two 5,000 watt amps on the outside edges and two Playstation 3's between them, which were wired to the TV, pouches that held the four controllers were on the backseat doors. This setup added an extra $12,000 to the price of the car, and although many may think of it as cumbersome, it actually left plenty of room in the large trunk. Room enough for Rachael's two suitcases. She brought her suitcases into her room but didn't unpack, she was tired and right now all she wanted was to go to sleep, and the sofa was looking very attractive right about now. She stripped to her black thong and bra and collapsed on the sofa, falling asleep only seconds later.

* * *

Richard was back in the room with the poker table and the others; they were in a good game of Texas hold'em. "So what do you guys think? Raise ten" Richard said, throwing a ten-dollar chip into the pot, Kori had already checked.

"What about? Raven?" Garfield queried, looking at his cards. "Call your ten."

Victor peeked at his cards. "I think she should've stayed wherever she was, she ain't gonna be able to adapt to the changes… See your ten and raise you another ten."

"Agreed" Kori added. "Call twenty."

"You can't possibly think that she's not capable of living up to her rep, can you?" Richard asked, throwing another ten into the pot.

Garfield tossed his cards. "If you're implying she can't race anymore, then no, I think she _can_ live up to her reputation again."

"That's a given, of course she can still race, whether she can still do it well or not remains to be seen" Victor said, putting three cards face up on the table, the nine of diamonds, eight of diamonds and nine of spades.

"Who cares… She's only going to run off when the cops show up again" Kori said. "Bet ten."

"Hey, don't be so hard on her" Richard defended sternly, calling the ten.

"Why not? It's true." Garfield added.

"Call ten." Victor said plainly, shortly there after putting the jack of hearts face up on the table.

Kori tapped the table, indicating that she was checking. "I really think you guys are underestimating her. Check." Richard commented.

"And so what if we are? She's got a lot of races to win before she can take on any of us." Garfield commented arrogantly.

"Gar has a point; I'll be convinced when she crosses the line before me." Victor said, showing the last card, which was the nine of hearts.

"Speaking of, this is my last hand, I got a couple punks who want to try and take my rank. Raise fifteen." Kori said, rummaging her pocket for the keys to her Nissan.

"Call fifteen." Richard said, shaking his head.

Victor pushed his cards away, indicating that he folded. "What've you got Rich?" Kori asked.

"Full house, nines full of eights." Richard said, showing his eight and jack.

"I was bluffing." Kori said, showing her five of clubs and seven of spades. "Well, I'm out of here."

"See ya Kori" The three men said.

"Which tier do you think she'll try to take on first?" Richard queried just for the sake of conversation.

Victor shuffled he cards and dealt them out. "Who knows? And for that matter, who cares?"

"I do" Richard said, looking at his cards. "Bet five."

"If she tries my tier she's not gonna get very far, call and raise ten." Garfield said.

Victor called the fifteen. "She probably won't go for your tier first Gar, that little Mazda of hers ain't gonna be much of a match for your Barracuda."

"She's not driving the RX-7 anymore." Richard commented, calling the ten.

Victor produced the flop, a six of hearts, ten of spades, and three of diamonds. "Then what's she driving?"

"It's not my place to say. Check." Richard said.

"It doesn't matter anyway. Check." Garfield said.

"Check as well" Victor said as he put down the forth card, the three of clubs.

"Aren't you guys only number three ranking in the three tiers?" Richard asked, tapping the table.

"So what if we are? There are ten rankings in each tier before you move into the second level, and each of us are constantly trying to get to higher rankings. Check" Garfield explained.

"Once we get to the second level we got five ranks to work through before we have to start taking on racers from the other tiers. Raise ten." Victor said.

"And once one of you gets past the other two you can try and work your way up to take on Slade for control for the city, I know. Call ten." Richard finished the thought for Victor.

"Fold." Garfield said.

"We boring you Rich? Or are you just worried because we also have to go through you in the second level?" Victor asked, putting the last card down, the five of clubs.

"I don't worry about things, you know that. I just think you all really have to think about what might be jumping into the fray. Check." Richard said, annoyed.

"Raise twenty." Victor said with an arrogant smirk on his face. Richard didn't know if it was from the cards the large man had or from the comment he just made about Rachael. Richard looked at his cards, the jack of spades and ace of hearts, all he had was a pair of threes playing the board.

"Fold." Richard said.


	3. First Blood Part One

Chapter 3: First Blood Part One

* * *

Rachael awoke suddenly to a pounding at her door. Forgetting that she was dressed only in her underwear, she got up and answered. "What?" She asked tiredly.

"Hey Rav-" Richard stopped when he noticed her attire. "Um… I thought you might like some lunch."

Rachael blinked, then she realized what she was wearing and blushed deeply. "Um… I uh… Eh whatever, it's not like you've never seen it before." It was true, Rachael and Richard did have a pretty serious relationship going prior to that night months ago. The girl would be lying if she said she didn't still have feelings for Richard. "Thanks." She said, taking the tray of food.

"Say uh… I thought I'd explain a couple things…" Richard began.

"I'm well aware that there have been a lot of changes since I left." Rachael interrupted.

"Yeah, one of them being that Slade is now the top dog in this city." Richard said.

Rachael thought for a moment. "Hm… Well, he always was the ambitious type."

"He didn't play by the rules." Richard said, closing the door behind him.

Rachael looked at him; she was in the middle of putting on her black leather mini skirt. "How do you know?" She asked.

"I don't have any solid proof but he climbed through the ranks way too fast if you ask me, and the cops seemed a little too uninterested in him."

Rachael zipped up the side of her skirt. "So what are you thinking? You think he's a cop?"

"No, I don't. But I do think he might've bought off the chief of police." Richard explained.

"What makes you think that?" Rachael asked, slipping on a black halter top.

"I saw his car at a one of the abandoned warehouses with the chief's personal vehicle parked next to it." Richard said

"Sounds like you might be onto something." Rachael commented.

"Probably, but enough about that for now, we have to start thinking about how we're going to get you back on the scene."

"Right, what's the race schedule for tonight?" Rachael queried.

"Two circuit races, two laps each, one on the City University track and the other on the Rail yard track. Think you might want to try one?" Richard asked.

"Yeah, if they're ranked matches."

"Only the University is ranked, Rail yard isn't." Richard explained.

"Then I guess I'm going to the University tonight, what time does it start?"

"Three fifteen AM, and the Rail yard race starts at three AM exactly, so that'll probably draw the cops away."

"For a little while at least."

Richard got up to leave, but thought he should offer Rachael an opportunity to give her car a workout. "You know Raven, the airport isn't supposed to have much activity today, if you want, you can use one of the runways to practice."

Rachael paused to think a moment. "You know, I think I'll take you up on that, I haven't really had much of a chance to get acquainted with my new car." She said, appreciating the offer.

"Ok, according to the wind, we're going to be using runways 8 left and 8 right, so runway 25 is all yours, I'll tell the tower, just be careful of the what activity we do get ok?"

"No problem." Rachael said, putting on her boots and winking to Richard.

* * *

Shortly after Rachael finished her breakfast-slash-lunch, she brought her car out to the runway. This was the five-thousand two-hundred thirty foot runway, so she had just under a mile to work with. She brought her car to a full stop, revved the engine to thirty-five hundred RPM's, dropped the clutch, shifted into first, and she was off. She shifted into second when the car reached thirty-two miles per hour. She had neither headwind nor tailwind to slow her down or speed her up so it was all the Charger that gave her the speed. Fifty-eight miles per hour rolled around and she shifted into third, and only a little over three seconds had passed yet. The runway was very smooth, but then again it had to be as airplanes did land on it. Rachael hit eighty-one miles per hour and shifted into fourth with seven-hundred feet of runway behind her. This is where it started to get kind of scary; these were speeds most people never touched even when on interstate highways, and she still had two more gears to go through. Rachael pounded into fifth gear at the one-hundred-twenty-six mile per hour mark, and she still had plenty of runway in front of her. Sixth gear it was when she hit one-hundred-fifty-three miles per hour, and she was still gaining speed. She hit a buck sixty, then seventy, another hundred feet and her speedometer read one-eighty, she was coming up to the last thousand feet of runway and she estimated it would take about two-hundred feet to stop, so she continued to push it past the one-ninety point. Her custom gauge went up to two-hundred-thirty, but the Charger couldn't go that fast, she knew that already. The needle idled at somewhere between one-ninety and one-ninety-five and that was it, the car simply wouldn't go any faster and Rachael started to slow down. She downshifted from sixth to fourth, then from fourth to second, then finally to first.

It was a satisfying run, but Rachael still wasn't comfortable taking the car onto the track. She turned around and pointed her car in the opposite direction and went again.

* * *

The rest of the day went by quickly, Rachael ended up using the better part of it to get used to her car, she felt comfortable with it around six o'clock, giving her several hours to kill before the race. She ended up going to the local Bestbuy and picking up a DVD player along with some DVDs. Up until about two-thirty AM she was watching these DVDs as she had nothing better to do. But now it was time to start rebuilding her reputation, she grabbed her keys and headed off to the University.

* * *

The University "track" composed of three streets that circled the city's local college. Paramont Drive was where the start/finish line was; from there a right turn was made onto Queen Street which went around two sides of the campus. After Queen Street a right turn was made onto Winchester Street which covered the final face of the campus and then another right was made back onto Paramont Drive. In all, it was a three and a half mile course and the record time was two minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

The competition was interesting. Usually ranked matches didn't have amateurs but since this was for the lowest rank on the board of tier two, there were a couple kids with big heads.

There were a total of eight racers all hoping to get that spot on the board. Some of the lesser competitors included a beat-up 1965 Ford Mustang, it wasn't clear if the color was red or rust. Another hopeful was driving a well taken care of, but weak Honda Civic coupe, not a mod to speak of; the thing was just a bland white, not even a window tint. A Mazda RX-7 sat off to the side, Rachael noticed the blue car had a donut wheel for a front-right tire, not something that could be called intimidating.

The more challenging challengers included a 2002 Porsche 911 Turbo; it was a beautiful car if you overlooked the purple paintjob. Even if it had only the stock engine in it, the car was still capable of about one-hundred seventy miles per hour with lightning fast acceleration. Another racer was driving an '01 Mitsubishi Eclipse, the body kit, spoiler and all that stuff were unimpressive to Rachael, however the more "gangsta" spectators seemed to love it. The guy had his hood up as some of the other racers did and the engine was fierce, a twenty-four valve V6 that, judging by the modifications, had somewhere between three-hundred ten and three-hundred twenty-five horsepower, coupled with a light frame and nimble handling and you had a big contender to worry about. Looking at another competitor, Raven found she was up against a '98 BMW M3 GTR, the car was black with bluish-teal stripes. The M3 GTR was a very powerful and maneuverable car just as stock; add modifications and a good driver and you might end up staring at the rear of the car for a few laps.

Finally, Rachael came across the one who was supposed to be protecting his spot on the board, a young man known as Darrin. He was driving a pretty sweet ride, a 1968 Chevy Chevelle SS, red with black racing stripes. It was unknown to Rachael what was under his hood as he wasn't showing, but she assumed it was something she wasn't going to like.

Drivers closed their hoods and started their engines. They lined up in four rows of two, the RX-7 at the front left with the BMW behind him, the Porsche next to the RX-7 with the Honda Civic behind him, the Mustang next to the RX-7 with Rachael behind her, and Darrin in his Chevelle next to the Mustang with the Eclipse behind him. Engines revved and pulses pounded as the race initiator stepped into position. The girl was cute, a brunette who wore her hair in pigtails with a pair of preppy short shorts. She raised her hands and bent forward, the race had begun.


	4. First Blood Part Two

Chapter 4: First Blood Part Two

* * *

All the cars got off the line nicely and the Porsche took an early lead. Darrin took second place while Rachael took third with the BMW very close behind her. The Honda was in fifth place with the Mitsubishi behind him, which confused Rachael; she thought it would be the other way around but she couldn't worry about it now. The Porsche was about to make the first turn and she was in danger of falling into fourth place. The BMW tried to pass on the right but Rachael was able to use the sheer size of her Charger to block the pass.

Rachael didn't enter the first turn well, while she had effectively blocked the BMW, the block forced her close to the curb, and so she couldn't enter the turn from the outside like she was supposed to. Instead she had to slow down considerably to make the turn and ended up getting passed by the Honda and Mitsubishi, on the outside to boot.

Now Rachael was in fifth place and she had figured out why the Honda was doing so well, the driver had given off the ultimate deception – his car was a sleeper. No outside modifications at all, all the work was under the hood so as nobody could be sure of the limits of the car.

Rachael stomped on the clutch and shifted into fourth, she wasn't going to let herself be beaten by such lesser cars, even if the Honda had every performance part it could be equipped with, it still couldn't possibly have more than six-hundred horsepower. Rachael took a gentle curve in the road at over one-hundred fifteen miles per hour, which put her in the left blind spot of the Eclipse. She quickly shifted into fifth and pulled by the dark purple car, the other driver didn't even try to block the pass, a smart move considering the size difference between the two cars.

Rachael was now behind the Civic and had left the Eclipse to deal with the BMW. The driver of the Honda was bold though, he actually did try to block the much larger muscle car from passing, causing Rachael to slam into the rear of the tuner. The impact was forceful but no serious damage was sustained to either car… By the collision itself anyway. The mass of the Charger was far greater than the Civic and the force of the impact caused the Honda to loose traction for a fraction of a second, but that was all it took. The sleeper jumped the curb and hit a fence, allowing Rachael to regain her third place position just as the second turn came up. The driver of the Civic was unhurt and his car was still drivable, he got back on the road and took over fifth place as both the RX-7 and Mustang had not passed by the scene yet.

Rachael took the second turn very well and floored the accelerator on the straight, four-lane road known as Winchester Street. This road was much more open but it was also had a few cars on it, most of them belonging to either night watchmen who were changing shifts, or students coming back from parties. Rachael had to dodge between an old Chevy Caprice Classic and an Acura MDX to keep her speed. She hit a buck forty before she had to slow down to make the third turn onto Paramont Drive.

Paramont Drive was relatively straight, a road that you could get a lot of speed on, and that's just what Rachael did. She pushed her car to over one-hundred fifty and as she crossed over the start/finish line she found herself breathing down the Chevelle and Porsche's necks.

The turn onto Queen Street nearly ended in a five car pile up. The RX-7's donut had blown on the first turn and sent the car sliding, the Mustang then plowed into it, completely destroying both cars and blocking a good portion of the road. The Porsche got around it without too much trouble but Darrin's Chevelle and Rachael's Charger were weren't that maneuverable, they both had to slow down considerably to get around the accident unharmed. This gave the Porsche a good lead but the race was still far from over. The one thing that muscle cars had over any other car was acceleration speed, and both Rachael and Darrin used that advantage. They quite literally put the pedal to the metal to try and catch up to the exotic. Rachael's Charger was faster however; she slowly passed by Darrin's older car and took second place.

The Porsche turned onto Winchester Street and nearly collided head on with a brand new Ford Five Hundred. The female driver of the Porsche temporarily lost control and spun out; she recovered just as Rachael came out of the turn followed by a very pissed off Darrin. Darrin ended up side swiping the Ford but it didn't slow him down, he was still hell bent on keeping his spot on the tier.

Rachael and the Porsche were neck and neck into the final turn of the race. Rachael made the turn on the inside but the Porsche's nimble handling allowed the driver to stay right on top of her through the turn. The two cars were fender to fender until Rachael shifted into fifth gear and pressed the button on her steering wheel, engaging the nitrous injection system. What this system did was mix the normal gas with a highly combustible chemical known as nitrous oxide. With this mixture, the fuel injection system acted as normal, but the pressure it built up to move the pistons became much more forceful as the amount of oxygen had been doubled. This action put a lot of stress on the engine but as long as it was done in moderation it was safe to do, and as long as the button was held down, the chemical would continue to be mixed with the gas for a longer boost. As soon as the additive was mixed with the gas, which was a process that took about an eighth of a second from when the button was first pressed, the car shot forward from one-forty to over one-seventy when the Charger crossed the finish line shortly before the Porsche.

Rachael slowed down and turned around so she could collect her prize for winning the race, a nice bundle of seven-thousand in cold, hard cash. Rachael took the money and gave the race initiator a five-hundred dollar tip, which the girl eagerly accepted. Rachael was then approached by an older man in a suit. "Well, well, well, if it isn't Rachael Roth, you remember me right?" The man asked.

"Of course I do Mr. Johnson, how could I forget what you did for me that time I had to skip town?" Rachael answered.

"I told you, it's what I do, and that's why I'm here now, to do what I do, how would you like this money dealt with?" Mr. Johnson queried. The man was a banker; he was a big executive at the largest bank in the city but unknown to most people, he also created private, Underground accounts for the street racers of the city, in return, he got a portion of their winnings, which is how he ended up owning three beautiful houses in Las Vegas, Georgetown Grand Cayman, and Rome Italy. He also had a fine collection of cars; however he preferred classics as opposed to what racers drove today. His midnight blue 1933 Rolls-Royce Phantom II was his most prized of these cars, and it is what he chose to drive on this particular night.

"Well you take a third of it; put another third into my Underground account and the final third into my front account." Rachael said.

"Sounds good and thank you for your business Ms. Roth" Mr. Johnson said as he took the bundle of cash and got into his Rolls to leave.

Rachael hung around for the next five minutes to shake hands and chat a little bit before excusing herself; she didn't want to be around when the cops showed up.


	5. What's Good and What's Not

Chapter 5: What's Good and What's Not

* * *

Rachael opted to join in the Texas Hold'em game that Richard was hosting, once again at his airport. Victor, Kori and Garfield were there along with two others, a man and a woman. The man was Roy Harper, and the woman was Toni Monetti. "Well Raven… You don't waste any time now do you?" Kori asked, tapping the table.

"Yeah seriously, the second day you're here and you go right for a ranked match" Garfield added, throwing a five dollar chip into the pot.

"Fold." Roy said simply.

"Call your five. And what? Are you saying you wouldn't have done the same?" Rachael queried.

"Call five and raise five" Victor said, throwing a ten dollar chip into the pot.

"She's got a point you know, I don't think any of you would've waited to try and clean up your name. Call ten." Richard commented with a smirk.

"Exactly, what would you have waited for?" Toni asked, folding.

"I'll call the ten." Kori said.

"See your five." Garfield said, staring at the table.

"Bleh, cards aren't on my side this hand." Rachael said, tossing her queen of diamonds and three of hearts. Victor produced the flop, the ace of clubs, the eight of clubs, and the six of diamonds.

"Cards never were your strong suit. Check." Kori insulted. Garfield checked right after her.

"Maybe not, but racing always was." Rachael shot back.

Victor peeked at his cards, an eight and nine of diamonds. "I'll raise ten."

Richard looked at his cards, a four and jack of clubs, he had a flush draw and was only one card away, he decided to try his luck. "Racing always was your strong suit; I don't know why you three didn't think she had it in her still." Richard said, looking at Victor, Kori and Garfield while calling the ten Victor had bet. "And I raise you another ten."

Kori and Garfield tossed their cards without a word. They weren't ashamed at what they had said about Rachael the night before last, but they were not happy about being proven wrong. "I'll call your ten." Victor said, not commenting on the Rachael situation. He then placed the fourth card on the table, the king of hearts. "I'll check."

"I'll check as well." Richard said, looking at Rachael.

The fifth and final card was placed on the table, the nine of hearts, giving Victor a two pair of nines and eights and leaving Richard with a king high. "I'll raise ten." Victor said.

Richard didn't even hesitate, he missed his flush and had only a high card, he tossed his cards, making Victor the winner of the hand. The cards were re-shuffled and dealt out, and it was Garfield's turn to bet first. He looked at his ace of clubs and seven of hearts and thought for a moment, it wasn't a great hand. "Fold." He said.

Roy's deuce (two) of hearts and four of clubs wasn't any better. "Fold." He said, bringing it to Rachael's turn.

She peeked at her hand, the king of clubs and the ten of spades, a decent starting hand, she decided to bet. "I'll bet ten."

Victor's king of spades and six of hearts was a mediocre hand at best, but he chose to play it anyway. "I'll call ten."

Richard didn't even say a word; he just tossed his six of diamonds and jack of clubs.

"Call ten." Toni said. "So you started in tier two correct?"

Kori called the ten and said, "Of course she did, you didn't think she was stupid enough to try tier one, _my_ tier, did you?"

"Get over yourself bitch, I only started in tier two because it was the only one with a race for an opening position last night!" Rachael spat as Victor put down the flop, the ten of hearts, nine of diamonds and the queen of clubs.

"Ah, is that the only reason you started in _my _tier, or is there something you're not telling us… Or more specifically, _me_?" Garfield interrogated.

Rachael picked up a pair of tens on the flop and decided to run with it. "Raise another ten."

Victor folded. "HEY!" Garfield yelled, slamming his hand on the table and jumping to his feet. "I asked you a question bitch!"

Rachael's facial expression didn't change, but Richard wasn't about to let that kind of behavior slide in his airport. "Hey yourself Gar!" He yelled, causing the smaller man to look at him. "One more outburst like that and I'll have you escorted out of here" Richard threatened.

Garfield growled to himself but sat back down. "You can go fuck yourself bitch" He said aloud.

"Last warning Gar" Richard said firmly.

Toni shook her head and peeked at her cards again. "What was the bet?" She asked.

"Ten." Rachael said calmly.

Toni scrunched her nose a bit before throwing a ten dollar chip into the pot.

"Just think of it this way Gar, you'll get your chance to knock her off the charts once she catches up to your spot in tier two." Kori said, calling the ten.

"Pfft, I'll be way into level two by then" Garfield assumed arrogantly.

Victor revealed the forth card, the queen of diamonds. "Then I'll have to get you in level two" Rachael mocked, throwing fifteen into the pot.

Victor spoke for Garfield. "Oh we'll see."

"It should be an interesting next couple of weeks, that's for sure" Toni said, calling the fifteen.

"Indeed it shall." Kori said, folding.

The fifth card was revealed, the trey (three) of hearts, and Rachael raised another fifteen.

"Dammit." Toni swore, there were only six possible hands that were better than what she had, but if she called this bet and lost, she wouldn't be left with much gambling money. "Grrrr… Uh… Oh why not…" She said, calling the bet.

"What've you got ladies?" Victor queried.

"Two pair, queens over nines." Toni said, showing her three of diamonds and nine of spades.

"Ouch, beat you by the skin of my teeth, two pair, queens over tens." Rachael said.

"The luck of the draw." Toni commented.

A new hand began and it was Roy's bet first, he liked his pocket deuces and raised ten. "So Raven, when do you think you're going to race again?" He asked.

"Whenever the next race for the number nine ranking in tier two is, and I fold." Rachael said, tossing her six of spades and three of clubs.

Victor said, "You know that's going to be tomorrow night right? I'll call the ten."

Richard called the ten. "So I guess it'll be tomorrow night then." Rachael said.

"I'm running out of money… This is my last hand, I got a race tonight." Toni said, calling the ten.

Kori looked at her six and five of diamonds and called the ten. Garfield folded his three of diamonds and seven of spades and Victor produced the flop, the jack of spades, four of clubs and five of clubs. "Check." Roy said.

"Raise ten." Victor said.

"I have a race tonight myself Toni, but not the one you're in, call ten." Richard said.

Toni peeked at her nine and king of clubs. "Oh yes, you're going for the number three spot in level two aren't you?" She asked, throwing a ten dollar chip into the pot.

Kori said, "I fold."

Roy threw a ten dollar chip into the pot and said "There are five rankings in level two right?"

The forth card came down, the four of spades. "Right, and once you get past those you move onto the really big races." Richard clarified.

Roy picked up a two pair of fours over twos on that forth card. "I'll raise fifteen."

Victor had a better two pair, jacks over fives and decided he would stay in the hand. "Call your fifteen."

Rachael asked, "When are these really big races held?"

It was Richard's turn to call. "There's one being held tonight, I'll be happy to show you if you want." He said to Rachael.

Toni called the fifteen, which left her with only two five dollar chips left. "I'd like that." Rachael said.

The fifth card was shown, the four of diamonds, giving Roy a full house of fours full of twos. "Raise fifty, all in." He announced boldly.

Victor now also had a full house of fours full of jacks, which was better than Roy's full house, although he didn't know what Roy had for sure. "Call." He said with a smirk.

Richard's face showed frustration, but he called the fifty with little hesitation. "Okay then, the race is at three thirty, I'll meet you at the front gate at quarter past okay?" He said to Rachael.

"Wait, don't you have a race tonight?" Rachael queried.

"Yeah, but it's an early one, it starts at two o'clock." Richard said.

"Oh, okay." Rachael said.

"Way too rich for my blood" Toni said, tossing her cards.

"Big pot" Garfield commented.

"Very big" Kori added.

Roy showed his cards first. "Full house, fours full of twos."

Victor was next. "Sorry man, full house, fours full of jacks."

"… Damn" Roy muttered.

"Sorry Vic, quad fours" Richard said, revealing his four of hearts and eight of spades.

"Damn…" Victor, Kori, Toni and Rachael all said at the same time.

Once again the cards were shuffled up and dealt and now it was Rachael's turn to bet first. "Bet five. So what kinds of cars do the guys in level three drive?"

"All kinds, call five." Victor said, adding his five dollar chip to the pot.

Richard looked at his cards, the ten of hearts and the ace of diamonds. "Call five." He said. "You know hwo to spot the rich ones in those races."

"Oh yes" Kori said with a smile, tossing her jack and seven of hearts.

"Yup, takes a lot of money to get those Japanese economy cars to go that fast" Garfield said, looking at his cards, the queen of clubs and the king of diamonds. "I'll call."

The flop was the seven of clubs, the ace of spades, and the ten of clubs. "Check." Rachael said.

"Check as well." Said Victor.

Richard now had a two pair of aces over tens. "Bet fifteen. I wouldn't bring a tuner into a level three race, but that's just me." He said.

"And why not Rich?" Kori demanded.

Garfield had a strait draw. "I'll call the fifteen and raise ten. And it's because tuners just usually lack the power unless you drop a couple hundred thousand under the hood."

Rachael thought for a moment before calling Garfield's raise. Victor folded but Richard stayed in. The forth card was the six of diamonds. "Check." Rachael said.

"Some just find it more logical to buy a powerful sports car than to buy a little Mazda or Mitsubishi and dump who knows how much into the engine" Victor added.

Richard tapped the table as did Garfield and the fifth card was put down, the nine of hearts. "Raise twenty." Rachael said.

"Never the less, some people do race tuners in level three, and sometimes they actually win. Call twenty." Richard informed.

Garfield missed his strait. "Fold." He said.

"What've you got Raven?" Richard asked.

"A strait, six through ten." Rachael said, showing her eight of hearts and queen of diamonds.

"Dammit, two pair." Richard said.

* * *

Roy was out of money from his last hand and he opted to leave with Toni. "So Toni, you doing anything after the race?" He asked her.

"Nothing planned, unless the five-oh show up." Toni replied, opening the door to her beautiful 2006 Ferrari 575M Maranello. The car was a sleek cherry red with expensive 20 inch five-spoke, chrome rims and a black racing stripe down the middle of the car.

"You think you might be interested in some breakfast?" Roy asked confidently.

"I think I would" Toni replied with a smile. "Meet me at the University at six."

"I will." Roy said just before Toni revved her engine and sped off. " Roy's car was also very nice, a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T, it was black with the classic rims that made it true to the old school Dodge style. The back tires, measuring a good thirty-six inches in diameter and close to eighteen inches wide were much larger than the front, giving the car a bit of a dragster look to it as the rear end was raised. He got into his car and revved his engine; he loved the sound of the classic muscle so he took every chance he could to enjoy it. He had no races tonight so he drove off, headed for his safehouse.

* * *

Victor, Kori and Garfield had all left a few hours ago and Richard was choosing his car for his race tonight. "What do you think I should drive tonight?" He asked Rachael.

"What kind of race and what track?" Rachael queried.

"Point to point, it's on the Causeway track."

"Eesh… Causeway is a bit of a long track." Rachael commented.

"Yeah, the record time is six minutes and twelve seconds, it's not so much long as far as distance, it's all those hard turns." Richard said.

"Yeah, aren't there like fourteen turns on it?" Rachael queried.

"Sixteen." Richard informed.

"Shit… Might want to take the Lamborghini." Rachael suggested.

"Yeah, it's probably the best choice, a low center of gravity, high grip tires and fast to boot." Richard said as he walked over to a wall-mounted locker. He opened it and inside was a bunch of keys hanging from hooks; he picked out the Lamborghini Diablo's keys and closed the locker.

"Mind if I tag along?" Rachael requested.

"Sure, but you're on the sidelines for the race." Richard said as he opened the scissor door and got in the Italian car.


	6. Causeway

Chapter 6: Causeway

* * *

The red Lamborghini stuck out on the surface streets but Richard was able to keep it from attracting the wrong kind of attention. The Causeway track started about one block west of the University on Winchester Street on a bridge over an interstate highway. From there the track followed Winchester Street for about two thirds of a mile, heading away from the University and into the city before a hard right was made onto Bay Road. Bay Road was followed past one intersection and then another right was made at the second intersection onto a road called Rock Place. Rock Place was a narrow residential street that curved a lot for a good half mile before coming to a four-way intersection. At this intersection, a left was made onto Hay Street then the first left off that street was onto the main drag of the entire city: Liberty Boulevard. Liberty Boulevard was a very open road that separated the west side of the city from the east; it had gentle curves along it but nothing that would force you to reduce speed, unless you obeyed the many traffic lights along it. Liberty Boulevard was followed for nearly three miles before a hard left was made onto Campelli Service Street B, a one-way service road that was meant to be easy access for large trucks to get to loading docks behind a large department store. This department store was so large it could easily fit ten tractor-trailers at its loading area. The track continued through the loading area, past Campelli Service Street A (another one-way road) and through the department store's parking lot where a right turn was made onto United Street. United Street was followed back across Liberty Boulevard to the west side of town and after about three city blocks, a left was made onto Yankee Road. Yankee Road was a four-lane road lined with skyscrapers and street side vendors. The road was followed for about two-fifths of a mile before a right was made onto Stealth Road, then the very next right was made onto Prospect Road. Prospect Road was another long, open road that you could get a lot of speed on and it was a good thing because the road was followed for exactly one mile before a sharp left was made onto Bacon Street, another narrow residential street that did a lot of curving before it opened up at Park Lane, where a right was made. Park Lane was more open, but was still only two lanes, risky to race on. Park Lane was a main drag, but it was still residential, middle-class houses lined it. It ended at a T intersection near one of the High Schools in the city, a left turn was made onto Water Road, toward the high school. The third left after the high school was Third Avenue, a borderline gravel road that was barely paved and was a single lane, it was impossible for two cars, even two compact cars, to fit side by side on this road. It was about seven-hundred feet long before it ended at Hemmingway Drive at another T intersection; this is where a right turn was made. Hemmingway Drive was like Park Lane, two lanes, residential, but open, the only difference was this was lower-class houses, people who lived happily, but had low incomes. Hemmingway Drive was yet another curvy road but kept itself going in the same general direction. At a four-way intersection a right was made onto Glass Street, a main road that went into town if you took a left from Hemmingway Drive, but taking a right, you would be heading for the desert, but not before you crossed back over Water Road and forked off to the left, but a right was made onto Red Street, which went on a bridge that went over the same interstate highway that the track began over (not the same bridge the race began on).

Richard's exotic car stopped right near the starting line and he and Rachael got out to observe the competition. Rachael was impressed, including Richard; five racers were vying for the position on the board tonight. A black Jaguar XKR convertible with custom rims but other than that, no visual modifications. A dark green Honda S2000, a small roadster but with the right modifications, a bullet that hugged the road and did not let go. The tuner was complete with a fitting body kit along with rims, spoiler, black flame vinyl's, black window tint, and green undercarriage glow, it was kind of eerie when you really took some time to look at it at night. A black, 1969 Pontiac GTO sat off to the side, multi-spoke rims that looked like they should be on a lowrider and green headlights, other than that, it was all muscle car. The final competitor was a yellow, 2007 Dodge Charger R/T Daytona, a fast car on its own, even if it was lesser than Rachael's Charger.

Richard walked over to the race initiator and gave her his entry fee, a wad of fifteen-thousand cash, whoever won this race was going to be bringing home a good sixty-thousand dollars in winnings, not bad for less than ten minutes of work. The racer who was defending their position on the board tonight was a young lady named Ariel. At the early age of twenty-three, it was a wonder how this girl had the money to invest in this sport, let alone get such a high ranking. She was the one driving the Jaguar; she had completely re-done the engine so as to make it more reliable as well as adding power to a beefy five-hundred-fifty horsepower which when coupled with the light frame and custom suspension, created a fast and nimble car.

The racers lined up in a single row, each of them nose-by-nose. The Honda on the far right with Richard next to him, the Charger next to Richard, the GTO next to the Charger and Ariel on the far left. The race initiator stepped between Richard and the Charger and in the signature motion, began the race.

The Charger took an early lead as the driver hit the nitrous right off the line, a rare strategic move that was used mostly by people with larger cars, the point was to get the lead and keep it by using the size of your vehicle to block passes, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Richard was in second place with Ariel behind him followed by the GTO then the Honda. Richard was right behind the Charger, their bumpers were only feet apart and Richard tried to use the wide road known as Winchester to get by the larger car, but the driver ahead wouldn't allow it. The moves the Charger was using to assure Richard stayed behind him almost got him passed by Ariel, who tried to come up on the left when Richard was trying to pass on the right but there wasn't enough road left before the first turn. The Charger entered the right turn from the outside and exited perfectly, as did Richard and Ariel along with the GTO and Honda. As soon as all five cars were out of sight, the spectators at the starting line piled up into their own cars to head to the finish line, most of these cars were big, luxurious cars, Chrysler 300's, Lincoln Town Cars, Cadillac CTS's as well as large SUV's such as Cadillac Escalade's, Lincoln Navigator's, and And GMC Yukon's, the finish line was only a mile away anyway.

Passing through the first intersection, the five racers ran a red light and the GTO was nearly eliminated due to almost T-boning a large box van full of lumber. The near miss put the GTO in last but so far, that was the only position change in the race. The racers made the right at the second intersection and were immediately forced to cut their speed almost in half. Rock place was barely thirty feet wide with a lot of sharp turns, and at fifty miles per hour, one mistake could mean the end. Richard shifted into third and tried to get by the Charger on left but the larger car still wasn't going to let him pass.

* * *

Rachael opened the new video message she and everybody else who was watching the race got on their cell phones. This street racing syndicate had spotters strategically placed along each track to cover the race via their cell phone cameras. Rachael saw the view from the side of the road, the Charger in front was being pressed hard by Richard and the Jaguar, about sixty/seventy feet behind Richard was the Honda and the GTO. Rachael watched as the five cars made the left onto Hay Street and disappeared.

* * *

Hay Street was treated more like a hairpin turn; it was followed for such a short distance that at high speeds, you couldn't even straighten out; you just kept turning left, right onto Liberty Boulevard.

This city didn't close at dusk, there were many nightclubs and casinos and whatnot that were opened throughout the night, so traffic was still a factor, even at this hour. The Charger passed an eighteen wheeler that was stopped at a traffic light on the right and Richard followed, Ariel, the Honda and the GTO all passed on the left. The Honda was nearly T-boned by an old Dodge Dakota crossing the intersection and the GTO had to swerve to avoid hitting the truck. The muscle car drifted nicely around the mid ninety's pickup and was soon back in the race, albeit a little further behind. The driver of the Pontiac shifted into fourth and hit the nitrous oxide, throwing his car from one-twenty to almost one-fifty, that burst of speed brought him past the Honda and into fourth place.

The six lane road made passing much easier, and Richard took advantage of that. He pulled over into opposing lanes of traffic, dodging a huge 2007 Toyota Tundra Crewmax and flooring the accelerator. He shifted into fifth and swerved into another lane to avoid an old beat up Ford Escort and made a quick glance to his right. The Charger was still slightly ahead of him, Richard's front bumper was aligned with the muscle car's back door. Richard's lane was clear, but the Charger had to change lanes to avoid another eighteen wheeler, this brought them about neck and neck.

Ariel drifted around the same Toyota Tundra that Richard had avoided less than a second ago and shifted her Jag into sixth, her speedometer read one-hundred sixty MPH when she spotted an opening between Richard and the Charger, she hit her nitrous and went for it.

The GTO was right behind Ariel… Until she hit the nitrous and pulled away. The driver of the GTO wasn't going to try to pass her… Yet. Instead, he focused his attention on the Honda behind him and prevented him from passing.

Another red light was blown by the racers and this time it was Richard who nearly wrecked. Yet another big rig was trying to cross Liberty Boulevard, and Richard had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting the cab. The truck driver saw him and stopped, thinking a collision was unavoidable, but Richard didn't hit him. Instead, he cut his speed to about thirty MPH and drove under the truck's trailer, regaining speed as he went. The driver of the truck was speechless; he stared at the Lamborghini as it sped away, his mouth hanging open.

* * *

Rachael and the other spectators arrived at the finish line and the camera views on the cell phones changed to a view of a gentle slop on a six-lane road. Rachael watched as the Charger slowed and made a left onto a service road, which she figured was Campelli Service Street B. Over a second passed before the next car made the same turn, and it wasn't Richard, it was the Jaguar, which was being followed by Richard. Rachael watched as the cars made the right into the loading area and disappeared from sight again.

* * *

Richard cursed as he bottomed out in a dip going into the department store's parking lot. The parking lot had about five cars in it, most likely night watchmen for the store, and they were well out of the way. Richard sped across the parking lot and made the right onto Untied Street, nearly hitting the race spotter in the process. United Street was only two lanes so it was very difficult to pass someone on it, so Richard just ended up tailgating Ariel across Liberty Boulevard and all the way to Yankee Road. Ariel took the left onto Yankee Road a little too wide, allowing Richard to pass her on the inside and retake second place. The Charger hadn't made the gap noticeably larger nor smaller between himself and the racer in second and Richard was hell bent on getting past the guy. He shifted into fourth and hit his nitrous oxide once again. The Charger swerved around a 2002 Chevy Malibu to make his right onto Stealth Road. Richard released his nitrous and was rear-ended by Ariel's Jaguar. The impact wasn't very hard, but hard enough for both drivers to know it happened. Richard downshifted and turned onto Stealth Road with Ariel right behind him.

The Honda was in the right blind spot of the GTO on Yankee Road and the driver hit the nitrous, pushing the small car past the bulkier muscle car but was forced to hit the brakes and go around a semi truck coming out of a side street, this let the GTO pull back ahead and once again take fourth place.

The driver of the Charger had to take the right onto Prospect Road wide as the driver thought he couldn't pass by the Audi A3 waiting at the light on the inside. Richard knew he could however. He was able to close the distance between the two cars and was now trying to figure out how to get into first. The openness of the road offered many potential opportunities and Richard took the most direct one – flooring the accelerator. He got into fifth gear and made a slight adjustment to get by a 1998 Toyota Camry trying to parallel park. Inch by inch, Richard was able to pull himself past the Charger and make the left onto Bacon Street in first place. Bacon Street was a street you couldn't go very fast on, the speed limit was twenty MPH, and Richard drive down it doing sixty, his Lamborghini being able to handle the curves.

The same could not be said for the Charger, who was barely making it by at forty MPH. Ariel was able to pass him on the inside of a slight right curve and take second place.

The GTO wasn't doing any better than the Charger, he was easily passed by the nimble Honda, who was able to handle the road at over sixty-five miles an hour. At that speed, the Honda was also able to close the distance and pass the Charger right before turning right onto Park Lane in third place.

Still being in first, Richard took advantage of the deserted Park Lane and hit a good one-sixty-five before turning at the T intersection onto Water Road. Ariel took the turn onto Water Road faster than Richard however and was able to gain distance on him and the Honda was also in a position to make a move for second place… Then they got to Third Avenue.

Richard took the ninety degree turn at thirty miles an hour and didn't accelerate much past that; the road was much too rough to go fast in a car as low as a Lamborghini. Ariel ended up following him down the entire length of the road with about three inches between her front bumper and his rear bumper. The Honda did the same to Ariel and the two muscle cars (the Charger in fourth and the GTO in last) were not far behind.

Hemmingway Drive came up and Richard peeled out, burning out his wheels trying to make distance. Ariel did the same and was able to stay right on Richard. The Honda had trouble finding traction and this allowed the muscle cars to pass him, leaving him once again at the back of the pack.

Richard was barely able to hold his lead down the entire length of Hemmingway Drive, Ariel kept trying to feint passes and Richard had to block them along with pass attempts from the Charger. The GTO was trying to pass the Charger and Ariel, and this took some of the pressure off Richard, not that he noticed.

Richard took the turn onto Glass Street as fast as he could, but it wasn't fast enough, Ariel was barely able to squeeze past on the inside and take the lead, earning another curse from Richard.

The pack raced back over Water Road and sped through the fork onto Red Street. They were entering the final thousand feet of the track. Richard got behind Ariel's left rear fender and hit his nitrous button once again… But nothing happened. Richard pressed the button again but still nothing. He diverted his eyes to his nitrous gauge and found the needle to be in the red zone. "SHIT!" Richard yelled as he released the accelerator and pounded it to the floor as hard as he could, but it didn't make any difference, he was in his highest gear and he was out of nitrous, there wasn't any way for him to push past the leader. His speedometer read one-hundred seventy-five MPH and was still climbing, but so was Ariel's, and she was able to keep her lead over the finish line.

Richard stopped and got out of his car, a very irritated look adorned his face as Rachael walked over. "You did what you could." She said sympathetically.

"I should've taken the last corner tighter" Richard said through gritted teeth.

"Let's not dwell on it, let's just-" She was interrupted…

A man yelled; "COPS! COPS!"

Richard and Rachael looked over the side of the bridge and saw a convoy of police vehicles speeding down the interstate, lights and sirens going. Richard was the first to find his voice.

"Time to go."


	7. Fast Cars and Cops

Chapter 7: Fast Cars and Cops

* * *

The Lamborghini's scissor doors made getting in and out something that took longer than on normal doors but Rachael and Richard were able to get in quickly enough. The racers and spectators scattered, some of them getting onto the interstate, some of them going into the desert, and some heading into the city. Richard was driving, and he opted to try his luck in the city. He spun around and went down Red Street, two police Dodge Charger SRT8's right behind him. "Dammit, why did Dodge have to make their most powerful Charger with a police package?" Richard asked rhetorically.

"_Because it just plain kills the Crown Victoria"_ Rachael thought. "They have powerful engines, but they're not easy to drive, take it from a girl who owns one."

Richard was able to get a lot of speed on the road but the cops stayed right on him, topping speeds over one-hundred fifty MPH, speeds that Crown Victoria's couldn't have reached. "They're not going to try anything too drastic inside a residential area" Richard said.

"Don't be too sure…" Rachael said as she looked down a side road and saw another Charger headed to join the pursuit.

Richard made a hard right onto a narrow street that went through a large condo complex, unfortunately, there were speed bumps every few dozen yards and the road was full of sharp turns, forcing a very low speed for both Richard and the police. There was a ninety degree turn to the right, then to the left before the two young racers came to a four way intersection. More cops were coming from the street to the right and the street to the left lead out of the complex, and Richard decided he would be better off on surface streets, so he went left, and then took another left, headed towards Liberty Boulevard. "Rachael, inside the glove box is a compact police scanner, get it and tune channel one-oh-three-point-eight, that's the local channel." Richard ordered.

Rachael didn't say a word; she just opened the glove box and pulled the police scanner to her lap, flipped it on and tuned the channel. _"… (Male voice) Pursuit of the silver Navigator… (Female voice) Blue Three-Hundred is west on Washington, we're gonna try to P.I.T him… (Different male voice) This is Smith; the green Honda has evaded us, heading to Water to assist with pursuit of the Jaguar… (Female voice) All units this is base, terminate pursuit on all bravo suspects and engage all remaining alpha suspects, black Pontiac is to be handled on one-oh-three-point-five, black Jaguar is on one-oh-three-point-six, red Lamborghini is on one-oh-three-point-seven and yellow Dodge on one-oh-three-point-nine, all uninvolved units to stay on current channel."_

"You don't even need to say it" Rachael said as she twisted the knob to tune the cover channel.

"_(Female voice) Suspect is headed east toward Liberty Boulevard, try to get a roadblock set up at intersection twelve…"_

"Intersection twelve is right ahead of us… If we take a right onto Fox Avenue, then a left onto Brock Road, we'd hit the Boulevard at intersection thirteen…" Richard thought out loud.

Rachael said; "They might be ready for that"

"Unlikely."

"_We're still east on Autumn_" A male voice said over the police scanner.

Richard saw the two police Dodge Durango's blocking the road ahead and jerked right onto Fox Avenue.

"_We are now south on Fox…_" Said the same male voice over the scanner.

"Not for long we're not." Richard said to nobody in particular just before swerving left, heading back east.

"_(Female voice) All units, be advised we are now back eastbound on Brock."_

"Go right on Liberty." Rachael suggested.

Richard did so, then asked; "Where are we going?"

"Take your third left then go two blocks and take a right." Rachael said.

"Why? That's going to bring us behind-" Rachael interrupted him.

"If you make the right fast enough you can duck into the hotel's multi-story car park before the cops round the turn." Rachael explained.

"… Good thinking." Richard said as he took a left. The cops were about three-hundred feet behind, not enough distance for Rachael's plan to work, Richard had to make some distance, he dodged around a blue, 1999 Honda Civic and floored the gas, shifted into fifth, then floored the gas again. Richard's Diablo, boasting six-hundred seventy-eight horsepower with the engine modifications shot forward, increasing the distance between him and the cops to over nine-hundred feet right before he made the right turn, which he took at over ninety-five, his car sliding to opposing lanes of traffic. He made the left into the multi-story car park and then turned left again to go behind the wall so the passing cops couldn't see him. He turned the car to face south and stopped, listening to the sirens fade.

"_(Female coive) Be advised, we have lost visual contact with the Lamborghini…"_

Richard let out a long breath. "Good call on the directions."

"That seemed too easy… I wasn't expecting that to work…" Rachael thought out loud.

"Well, it did… Now I promised you I'd take you to a level three race didn't I?" Richard asked rhetorically as he shifted into gear and pulled out of the car park.

* * *

The drive took twenty minutes. The race Richard was taking Rachael to see was in the outskirts of town. He pulled up to the crowd of people in the street and stopped. He was immediately greeted by two young men. "Hey Rich, what the hell are you doing here?" One of them asked while offering a hand to shake.

"Hey Andrew, I'm just here to watch" Richard replied to Andrew Tempest.

"Who's the third wheel?" The other man queried, motioning to Rachael with his head.

"You don't remember Rachael, Wally?" Richard asked.

Wally's smile quickly faded. "Oh… Well, the race is starting in five, if you want to scope out the racers, you better start now." He gave one quick glare at Rachael and walked off.

"Okay Rachael, have fun, come back here when you're done." Richard said just before joining the crowd.

Rachael looked around, feeling uncomfortable with being around all the people who thought so lowly of her but she soon shook it off and started exploring. The first car she noticed was a black, 2006 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. "Holy shit, not a bad way to spend four-hundred-thousand dollars."

A slightly stocky, middle-aged man with glasses walked over. "Something interest you about my car missy?"

Rachael turned around to face the man and found him to be about her height. She wasn't impressed by the man's appearance, but she was impressed that this casually-dressed man would have such a car. "This is yours?" Rachael asked quizzically.

"It sure is, hit the lottery a few years ago, learned about this racing organization and decided to get involved." The man explained.

"And you worked your way all the way up to level three?" Rachael interrogated in disbelief.

"Well I never thought I would get this far but I can't say I haven't enjoyed the ride. HEH!"

Rachael's face showed major discomfort, but she quickly smiled and excused herself. The next car she saw was a black, 1996 Chevy Impala SS, not something she was expecting to see. The hood was open and Rachael leaned in for a closer look, what she saw was almost scary. The cold air induction system was what you saw on only the best Formula-1 cars. The turbo intake shaft was of an unknown make to her, but she could tell it was a super-rare part by the fact that she had never seen one before. The block was obviously modified for racing being three-quarters of an inch wider than normal and over in inch longer, making room for larger pistons and a stronger driveshaft. The turbocharger looked to be stock, but it had a strange growth off of it, Rachael could only imagine what it was for.

"Well… Look who it is." Said the owner of the Chevy. Rachael recognized the voice, and shuttered. She turned around to face Tara Markov. "What? No 'hey, how've you been?' or any exciting greeting for me?"

Rachael shifted in her stance. "Tara… Don't… Just don't." She said, avoiding eye contact.

"Don't what? Give you another bullet in the arm? You brought it on yourself." Tara taunted.

"Tara… I screwed up, the cops were everywhere, I jumped in the first car I saw and bolted. Why the hell did you leave your car running?" Rachael tried to defend herself.

"The only reason I wasn't convicted was because _you_ took my car, I got off on lack of evidence." Tara spat.

"Look, you didn't have to try to kill me to get your car back! I would've handed it over happily but instead you shoot me in the arm, I fall to the floor, turn onto my back-"

"-And I point the gun at your head and pull the trigger but the gun jams, yeah, I remember it too." Tara finished for Rachael.

"I think we're done here" Rachael said as she walked off to the next car.

Tara muttered; "You come near my car again and you won't walk away, bitch."

"Friggen crazy bitch" Rachael muttered to herself, rubbing her right tricep, where Tara had shot her.

The next car she noticed was a dark blue, 2008 Audi R8, the beauty of the car took her breath away. She would've loved to examine the engine but the driver, a young man she didn't recognize, wasn't allowing people too close to his two-hundred-thousand dollar car.

Rachael kept walking, but before she located the fourth and final racer, the race began, the four cars lined up and were ready to go when Rachael saw it, a like-new, yellow, 1997 Ferrari F50. "Holy fuck…" She said to herself.

The initiator stepped in front of the pack and blew a kiss to each of the racers, raised her hands up, then let them fall.

The racers were off, the Audi taking an early lead and Rachael could've sworn she saw the front tires of the Impala raise off the ground for a fraction of a second as the rear tires peeled out. The road was followed into the desert and out of sight into a canyon. Only a few seconds later, Rachael's cell started ringing, she flipped it open and saw it was a video message from Richard, covering the race. The first shot she saw was of a road that curved around a rock face. It was very badly lit, until headlights illuminated it and four pairs of taillights entered the picture, then disappeared around the wall of rock. The next shot was from the bottom of a hill, the road was better lit here but that wasn't saying much. Headlights could be seen over the horizon of the hill. They became more intense as the cars got closer and suddenly a black silhouette flew into the picture, all four wheels off the ground. A second black silhouette blasted into the picture just as the first hit the ground and bottomed out. Next, the Ferrari entered the picture, getting air off the sudden drop in road elevation followed very closely by a third black silhouette. So far, all she could tell was that the Ferrari was in third thanks to its bright color. The next several shots didn't help to clear things up either. It was over a full minute before a shot was shown on a well-lit stretch of road. The Mercedes was in first, followed by the Impala, then the Ferrari and finally the Audi, whether that was the case when she had first opened the video, she didn't know. Two shots later, a long curve with a solid rock face on one side and a cliff on the other showed up on the screen. The cars entered the curve and began to drift around it, the Mercedes hugging the inside, leaving the outside open for a pass, which Tara took advantage of. When drifting, the steering wheel and accelerator switch roles, to swing the back end of your car around, you had to push down on the accelerator, to determine how fast the car made distance (in the case of drifting, sliding sideways), you had to turn the wheel out of the drift (please forgive me, this is very hard to explain without a visual). Tara slowly swung the long car around the back of the Mercedes and assumed the lead. The Ferrari tried to do the same but there wasn't enough distance left in the turn. The next shot showed the Mercedes exiting the turn, poorly. The driver nearly spun out and as a result the Ferrari was able to pull past him on the right but the Audi nearly rear-ended the Mercedes. Two shots later the racers had to slow significantly for a sharp and narrow turn to the right. The Chevy was still in front but now the Mercedes was making a move for second while the Audi was getting acquainted with the Mercedes' rear bumper, itching to get past. The Chevy was able to block the pass attempts by the Mercedes but these maneuvers allowed the Ferrari to gain a foothold to overtake second place. The F50 and SLR were nose-to-nose in second and the aerodynamics held both cars back and gave the Chevy a distance advantage. Three shots later the Ferrari had overtaken the Mercedes but the Chevy was now about one-hundred feet ahead, didn't seem like much but it didn't matter if it was an inch or a mile, whoever was first across the line won. There were no changes for the next several shots, until the racers got back on the main road, heading back to the starting line, the Chevy in front, the Ferrari in second but on the final turn, the Mercedes went too wide and the Audi got into third. It was now all down to top speed; any curves in the road didn't require reducing speeds so whoever had the fastest car was the most likely to cross the finish line first. Tara shifted into sixth and floored it, her speedometer reading over one-seventy and climbing steadily. The driver of the Ferrari was also in sixth and gaining speed. The Chevy sported more horses but the Ferrari was much lighter and aerodynamic, giving it an advantage of sorts. The driver of the Audi was in his highest gear as well, once his needle shot past one-hundred eighty MPH, he flipped open a small deflector covering a button on his gear stick (like what you see on fighter jets to prevent the "FIRE" button from being pressed accidentally) and pushed it down, and was pushed back in his seat from the sudden burst of acceleration from the nitrous oxide, blasting his car to over two-hundred ten MPH. The Audi passed the Ferrari and Tara diverted her eyes to her rear-view mirror, and she saw the R8 coming, she in turn immediately pushed down her steering-wheel mounted nitrous button and flew forward. Rachael looked up from her cell and saw the cars about a half mile down the road, she estimated their speeds to be over two-hundred MPH and she was right, but she didn't think she'd be off by more than twenty-five miles. The Audi got directly behind the Chevy to draft, he stayed there for slightly over a second before he swerved to the left and got past, taking first place just in time to cross the finish line at over two-hundred thirty MPH.

The driver of the Audi stopped and got out, holding his fist in the air in victory. Rachael saw Richard shake his hand just before two young women, probably still in their teens, possibly very early twenties come over and take an arm each. Richard motioned to Rachael to come over and she did, it was time for them to leave.

* * *

"So what did you think?" Richard queried.

"Fast… Very fast." Rachael replied, seemingly in disbelief.

Richard chuckled a bit. "Level three isn't for lucky guys like that dude with the McLaren, he's just got too much money and too much time. I was very surprised, I would've bet money Tara was going to take that race but well, those Audi's are a force to be reckoned with."

"There a twenty-four hour fast food joint around here? I'm hungry, then I want to go to bed."

"Heh, yeah, there's a Burger King about a mile away, let's pick something up."


	8. Another Ally

Chapter 8: Another Ally.

* * *

It was a new day at Clancy Municipal Airfield, a hot and sunny one at that and Rachael took advantage of it. She was lying down in a lounge chair on the tarmac with a tropical drink on a small table next to her. She wasn't wearing much, a dark blue bikini with a G-string bottom and a pair of sunglasses; a few of the airport workers couldn't help but stare from a short distance away.

Richard came out and saw her, and then he saw the three workers staring. "Hey!" Richard said, not quite loud enough to be considered yelling, but it got the workers attentions. "I'm not paying you to stare; I'm paying you to work, so get to it!" He ordered just before walking up to Rachael. "You know you're going to be distracting the pilot's right?"

Rachael smiled. "I would hope that the pilots are more disciplined than those guys."

Richard shrugged. "True, but doesn't it bother you to have people staring at you like that?"

"Meh, not really" Rachael replied, shrugging.

"Well don't stay out here too long, wouldn't want you to get burned."

"Don't worry Rich; I got plenty of sun block on."

* * *

Richard went back inside and retrieved a can of Pepsi, then he returned to his poker game with Garfield, Victor and Roy. "Okay, so who's what?"

"You're small blind, if that's what you're asking" Roy said.

"Making me big blind" Victor commented, shuffling the cards.

"Hey Rich, I'm ready to take that Chevelle off your hands" Garfield said.

"Oh really? You know I'm not letting that thing go cheap" Richard replied. Victor dealt out the cards; Richard peeked at his eight of clubs and king of spades and added twenty dollars to the pot. "How much you offering?"

"Three-hundred fifty thousand" Garfield said.

Victor called the twenty. "This is just me, but I would want more" Victor said.

""I'm gonna have to second that" Richard said as Roy peeked at his seven of hearts and seven of diamonds, then called the twenty.

Garfield looked at his cards, an ace of hearts and a three of clubs. "Well at the moment I can't go more than four-hundred kay, but I wouldn't offer you any more than that under any circumstances anyway." He said, folding.

The flop was revealed, three of spades, king of diamonds and seven of spades. "Hm… I'll give it some thought." Richard said, checking.

"I still think that's a little low" Victor said, raising ten.

Roy called, confident in his triple sevens. "You could probably get more at auction" he said.

"Could get a lot less too" Garfield added.

Richard thought for a moment before saying; "Well what auction could I bring it too with all the shit I got in it? The thing isn't even track legal never mind street legal." He paused, then called.

Fourth street was dropped on the table, the ten of diamonds. Richard checked.

"Raise another ten" Victor said, loosing interest in the conversation at hand.

Roy still liked his triple sevens, and called again. "How many horses did it dyno again Rich?"

"Six-hundred ninety-nine, coupled with about seven-hundred ten pounds of torque" Richard replied proudly, calling the ten.

The fifth and final card was dropped, the ten of clubs, giving Roy a full house of sevens full of tens, but his face didn't show it. Richard once again checked. "Twenty-five" Victor said, adding said amount to the pot.

"Call you… And raise you all in" Roy said, pushing all his chips into the pot, a grand total of about four-thousand dollars.

"Pfft… you guys can fight over it" Richard said. "I'll tell you what I'd definitely let you take for four-hundred bills, my '07 Impala SS"

"Tempting" Garfield said, "But no, I want that Chevelle."

"Well like I said, I'll give it some thought." Richard said, returning his attention to the cards to find out Victor was in the process of calling Roy's all-in. Victor had about two-hundred less chips than Roy, so Roy took two-hundred of his back from the pot. "Showdown gentlemen, and I use that term loosely" Richard joked.

Roy quickly showed his full house, sure that he had won… Until Victor showed his two cards, the two remaining tens in the deck, four tens trumps any full house and Victor doubled up. "Wow… what are the odds of that?" Garfield queried to nobody in particular.

* * *

Rachael was about to doze off when she heard the loud but smooth roar of an Italian sports car's engine. She turned her head to see the cherry red paintjob with the black racing strip down the center of the body along with the aftermarket rims that could only belong to one of her most talented, but also friendliest rivals – Toni Monetti. The Italian-British beauty got out of her equally beauty of a car and strolled over to Rachael. "Well… Are we trying to catch a tan, or catch attention?" Toni joked.

"Well _I'm _trying to catch a tan; I don't think I can say the same about you though with _that_ car." Rachael joked back.

Both of the girls laughed and Toni took a seat on her driver's side fender, her red miniskirt rising to reveal her black panties. "So tell me Raven, what kind of reception have you been getting from the rest of the Underground?"

Rachael frowned, "What's to be expected I guess."

"Bleh, don't let those bloody bastards get to you, you're one of the best drivers in the world and in time, they'll come to respect that."

"Yeah, a _lot_ of time" Rachael added.

Toni redirected her eyes in thought then returned them to Rachael. "You do know there's another ranked match for your position tomorrow night correct?"

Rachael removed her sunglasses and stared hard at Toni. "No… I didn't" She replied in firm surprise.

"Surprising, Richard probably didn't know because he's been pretty bitchy about his loss last night. I could've sworn he told you though."

Rachael thought for a moment. "Oh wait a second, I think he did tell me..."

"Well you know now, the race is at one-thirty and I'm going to be spectating so I'll see you there?" Toni queried.

"You sure will" Rachael replied.

"Good, and Raven…" Toni began, waiting for Rachael to make complete eye contact. "Things have changed since you left, if you ever need some help, I've got your back, got it?"

Rachael nodded. "And I've got yours" she said.

* * *

Victor checked on his nine of hearts and ten of diamonds. "Bad loss last night huh Rich?"

"Against a Jaguar nonetheless" Garfield added, raising ten on a duce and four of hearts.

Roy looked at his five and jack of spades and called the ten without a word.

"And so what if I did? Are you saying you've never lost a race?" Richard asked, adding his money to the pot.

The flop was the nine of spades, jack of clubs and ace of diamonds and Victor was the first to act. Having paired his nines, he raised another ten. "Did I say that?" Garfield asked Richard. "Of course I've lost races before, but never to a low-rate Jag." He called the bet.

Roy called. "It's the Jaguar luxury model line that has the reputation for being unreliable Gar, not their sports models."

"Thank you Roy, and by the way, I double the raise" Richard said, throwing twenty into the pot.

The other three called and the turn card came down, the three of clubs, Garfield now had a strait draw. "Check" Victor said.

"Twenty-five" Garfield said.

Roy considered what he had, then what everybody else could have and deemed it appropriate to call. "I hear the reason for the loss was a dry nitrous tank, that can't be right, can it?"

Richard made a small sound of annoyance whilst calling the raise. "It was, which makes no sense at all, I fill my nitrous tank after every race and I know how fast I run out, I should've had plenty left, at least two more five-second bursts worth but pfft… Nothing."

Victor made a hesitant call. "Sounds like an excuse to me."

"Call it what you want." Richard said as the final card, the seven of diamonds, was revealed. Victor checked again.

"Excuse my ass, that sounds like sabotage, anybody who makes such an amateur mistake wouldn't make it half way past level one, was anything else missing form anywhere in that garage?" Garfield asked, folding, he had missed his strait and with a four high, he wasn't winning this round.

"I didn't notice anything, I'll take a look after this hand" Richard said.

Roy still had marginal confidence in his jacks; he played it safe and checked. "Good idea."

Richard nodded. "Raise ten."

Victor and Roy called, three way showdown revealed Victor with nines, Roy with jacks and Richard the winner with aces followed by a king.

"Anybody else coming?" Richard asked.

The four men got up and walked into the garage. "Let's start with the obvious, any cars missing?" Roy queried.

Richard looked around, all of his cars plus Rachael's Charger were there. "Nope" He answered.

"Let's take a look at that Lambo, maybe something's missing in there?" Victor said.

"The only thing I keep in there are a pair of sunglasses and a police scanner" Richard informed, "And I know the scanner is in there because I had to use it last night."

"Sunglasses then?" Garfield said.

Richard retrieved the keys to the car and opened the door, then opened the middle glove box, the sunglasses were gone. "Son of a bitch" Richard said in a calm, but surprised tone.

Richard led the men out to the tarmac and to Rachael. "Raven?" Richard asked in a firm tone.

Rachael jumped slightly at the sound of her name, she had had her eyes closed when the men approached. "Something wrong Rich?"

"I know you didn't, but did you take my sunglasses out of the Lamborghini?"

Rachael made a look of confusion. "No?" She said.

Richard trusted her. "Well, you were right Gar, somebody sabotaged me."

"Sabotaged?" Rachael queried.

"Who would do that? And why?" Victor asked the group.

"Slade" Richard said, "He's seen how good I am, and he's not going to let me get anywhere close to his spot on the ranks."

* * *

Richard had dismissed his friends; he needed to do some investigating. He rifled through a drawer in his desk and located a key; he then moved a nightstand aside to reveal a safe in the wall. He inserted the key and gave it a quarter turn to the right, then he typed in a four digit code into the keypad. A beep was heard and he opened the door. The inside of the safe was small, he kept mostly important papers and confidential information about the Underground in there, but he also kept a Walther P99, silencer, ammo and gun magazines in there. He removed the 9mm weapon and checked the safeties; he then attached the silencer and made sure it was firmly connected to the barrel. Finally, he loaded a full magazine into the weapon and put it on a thigh holster. That's when Rachael entered. "Please tell me you're just going to the range?" She asked, she knew what he was doing and where he was going already.

"I think you already know the answer to that" Richard replied.

"I'm not going to let you go alone" Rachael said.

Richard was in the process of putting on a black, leather trench coat but he stopped when he heard Rachael say that. He looked over to her to see she was dressed very nicely. He had extremely tight, dark blue jeans on along with a black, leather coat that fell about halfway down her thighs complete with very hot chains. "… Sorry, it's work for one, more than one increases the risks."

Rachael's facial expression didn't change. "It also increases the chances for survival."

Richard finished applying his coat and looked hard at Rachael, it seemed like hours before he actually said anything. "You're not going unarmed."

Rachael reached into her coat and pulled out a silenced Walther PPK. "Any other objections?" She asked.

Richard smiled slightly. "I'll drive."


	9. Felony Flight

Chapter 9: Felony Flight

* * *

Rachael and Richard had taken Richard's black Chrysler 300C, on the outside, there was nothing to see, anybody who looked at it wouldn't know it was packing a six-hundred fifty horsepower ten cylinder that was supposed to go into a Dodge Viper, thus, the car called little attention to itself. "So any idea where we should start investigating?" Rachael queried.

"The industrial district, Slade does a lot of business there" Richard answered.

They drove for another twenty minutes when Rachael noticed something out of the corner of her eye. "Hey wait, stop."

Richard stopped the car. "What?"

"Back up, I thought I saw something."

Richard did so, about fifty feet back and Rachael told him to stop again, she could barely see it through the bushes but there was a red car parked at what was supposed to be an abandoned warehouse, and not just any car, it was a Ferrari Enzo, with custom rims to boot. Richard asked; "So how many people around here drive that kind of price tag?" He turned around and parked across the street, out of sight and the two got out. They quietly walked over to the warehouse and noticed three other vehicles, two Mercury Marauders, one grey and the other black and a black Chevy Suburban. "Feds" Richard whispered.

"And check the license plate Rich, N-D-4-S-P-D… Need for speed, that's Slade's Ferrari" Rachael commented.

The two entered the warehouse as quietly as they could. The door they went through entered into an office with a set of stairs, which they ascended. At the top of the stairs was a catwalk, probably about twenty feet above the main floor. The warehouse was also very dark, save for a single light at the far end with seven persons under it. Three of them were armored soldiers, flak vests, Kevlar helmets, combat boots and MP5 submachine guns adorned their features. Three of the others looked to be businessmen… And a businesswoman. The two men were wearing black suits and ties, the woman was wearing a grey dress and the last person was dressed in a long, black coat, completely covering his body, his face was also covered by a mask, one side was colored black while the other was colored brown, this man was Slade. The four latter persons were in a loose huddle, Rachael and Richard could barely hear what they were saying…

* * *

"I'll pay you what we agreed upon, not a cent more Detective Rouge" Slade said.

"We agreed on ten million, but if you want me to keep my end up you're going to have to throw in an extra five" Rouge demanded with her Russian accent.

"What?… Ten million Slade? Why are we only getting three each?" One of the men asked.

"Because that's what we agreed on, it's not my fault you were too timid to ask for more" Slade said calmly, looking at the man out of the corner of his eye.

Rachael and Richard settled on the catwalk, listening in to this conversation.

"I had one of my guys go to the airport and drain your little rival's nitrous tank and you're only giving me three million while arguing about giving this local bitch fifteen? Give me one good reason I shouldn't have these two gentlemen put you in the ground right now?" The other man said.

"Because if you do you'll not only destroy your only link into the Underground but you'll also expose yourself as a crooked fed Agent Johnson" Slade explained.

Agent Johnson's facial expression went from angry to extremely irritated at that comment.

* * *

"No way…" Richard said quietly in disbelief.

"He's not just buying his own freedom he's trying to destroy the entire Underground!" Rachael exclaimed in a whisper.

* * *

Detective Rouge spoke up. "Ah but you see Slade, these special agents you may be able to threaten like so, but with me, the county has no idea how deep your little organization goes, and they never will… Unless I tell them…"

"You try to tell them that... And their going to ask how you know…" Slade said.

"Ah but that is the beauty of it… You see, I arrest you, saying that I picked you up on disorderly conduct and you spilled the beans to me right there…" She explained, pulling a pair of handcuffs from her belt.

Slade quickly but calmly pulled a USP .45 out of his coat and pointed it at the Detective. "I'm sorry Detective, but if you try to do that I'm going to have to kill you." Rouge stiffened and her movements slowed. Keeping her eyes on the gun as she put the handcuffs away. "Good choice… Your money is in these suitcases…" He said, motioning to three suitcases beside him, one of them considerably larger than the other two. Richard shifted in his crouch and knocked a piece of metal from the catwalk; it landed with a loud 'clang' and got the seven peoples attentions. "It seems we may have company."

Both Rachael and Richard drew their guns and started moving back to the stairs. "Wait" Richard whispered just as they were about to round the corner to the stairs, he put his back to the wall and peeked around the corner, to the base of the stairwell, the three soldiers were about to come up. Richard quickly ducked back behind the wall, "go, that way" He said quietly, pointing away from the stairs. The two scurried away, into the shadows to hide just before the soldiers got to the top of the stairs. They looked around, guns drawn and ready but luckily they didn't see either of the two street racers.

The three of them spilt up to cover the catwalks, two of them were walking away from Rachael and Richard but the third was walking straight at them. "Do. Not. Move." Richard said, barely audible.

Rachael heard him and froze; the soldier was getting too close. Both of them had their weapons ready but they prayed they wouldn't have to use them. Lucky for them, none of these soldiers seemed to have night vision goggles on.

The soldier stopped suddenly and stiffened in his stance, Rachael and Richard both knew they had been made. He was so close that they could see him blink, trying to focus on what he was seeing, that was when Richard made a decision. Faster than the eye could follow, he stood up from his crouch, pointed his gun at the soldier and fired. The silencer muffled the bang to a smooth puff with a little whistle to it but even this small sound echoed in the empty warehouse. The bullet made contact with its target fifteen feet later, hitting the man in the chest and forcing him to stumble back, all the while getting everybody's attention. The two street racers bolted deeper into the building in an attempt to find another place to hide until they're route to the exit was clear. Not even a second later the soldier who was closest to them began to fire full auto, he missed, but not by much. After emptying an entire magazine his two comrades joined him to see if he was alright. The man had suffered nothing more than what a hard punch to the chest would cause as the vest caught the bullet. "GO! I think there are two of them!" He yelled as he composed himself and reloaded his gun. The other two ran in the direction Rachael and Richard had retreated to, and ran right past them. The racers had found an open section in the wall completely covered in shadows with just enough room for the two of them, but now they had a problem, they were completely surrounded and it seems the three law enforcement persons were joining the search.

"Come out!" one of them yelled.

"Surrender and you will live!" The other yelled. Little did either of them know that they were practically right on top of the racers.

"We need light, Johnson, turn on the lights!" The other fed ordered.

Agent Johnson stopped by a set of switches and flipped them all to the "on" position, flooding the warehouse in a sea of light. As quick as death itself, Rachael and Richard emerged from their hiding spots and pointed their guns at the back of the two soldier's heads, and simultaneously pulled the triggers. At such close range the Kevlar helmets did nothing to stop the bullets as both men dropped to the floor, dead. Rachael and Richard turned around and began firing at the other soldier, who ducked in cover; somehow, all seven bullets missed him.

The two Federal Agents and the Detective now had drawn their weapons, Rouge with a standard-issue Smith and Wesson .40, Agent Johnson with a Glock 18, and the other Agent with a Beretta 92FS. The three different bullets all flying in the same direction as Rachael and Richard struggled to stay a few inches ahead of them. They ducked into an office for cover just as the remaining soldier got to his feet.

* * *

Slade had shown himself the door when the shooting started, in the silence of the pause in gunfire the six persons inside the warehouse could hear tires screeching and fade into the distance.

* * *

The office Rachael and Richard had entered had another set of stairs, but they only went further up, deciding it was their best chance they went for it. They were now on the highest floor of the warehouse and they once again adopted a stealth tactic, moving slowly and quietly and looking down at their pursuers, who don't seem to have figured out that they had taken to higher ground, must be a case of tunnel vision as they were in plain sight with the lights on. Rachael looked to the opposite side of the warehouse, the side the law enforcement people had been meeting with Slade, there was a catwalk going against all four sides of the warehouse and there was another office at the corner opposite the one they were at, but it would be a long trudge. They opted for the route to their right as it did not pass directly over the soldier as the route to the left did. They moved slowly and after about twenty seconds they heard a loud explosion and saw a bright flash. The soldier had thrown a flashbang grenade into the office he thought Rachael and Richard were in. All four of the people on the second floor rushed into the room and after finding nothing went to the third floor. "HEY!" One of the feds yelled as he aimed and fired his weapon at the two street racers, the other three following suite quickly.

The time for stealth was over, Richard and Rachael ran and fired back blindly, Rachael having to reload after only three shots, one of the drawbacks of a seven bullet capacity magazine. Richard had to do the same after his remaining four shots were spent; he dropped the empty magazine and loaded another full ten round magazine into his gun, then, like Rachael, continued to fire back blindly.

Somehow they made it to the opposite side without being struck by a bullet and they quickly descended down to the first floor via another staircase and bolted to the exit.

The other four people inside the warehouse did the same, only a bit behind, Rachael and Richard were the first outside. They ran past the three government cars and behind the bushes where Richard had parked, they quickly got into the Chrysler and peeled out.

* * *

A couple blocks down the road Richard looked in his rear-view mirror and saw the two Marauders and Suburban were chasing him, and they were gaining fast. Richard took a corner hard, entering from the outside as if he were in a race. The Suburban was the first to take the turn but the top-heavy vehicle couldn't handle it, it went on two wheels and soon flipped onto its roof, gaining momentum and flipping over and over, taking out a fire hydrant and a street light and barely missing a telephone pole.

The two Marauders fared much better, but it was obvious the ones driving them weren't as skilled as Richard, they took the turns slow and entered them from the inside, giving Richard a commanding lead. He made another turn and then another, drove about a block and made another turn, heading back towards the warehouse. The two Marauders were no longer in his rear-view and the two breathed a sign of relief as Richard slowed to a stop. "Close" Richard said to his partner.

Rachael was about to say something when they saw headlights speeding towards them, they were moving too fast to be from either of the Marauders so the racers drew their weapons and were ready to shoot right through the windshield. The vehicle slowed to a stop in front of them and the lights were turned off, after a moment of letting their eyes adjust both Rachael and Richard were surprised and pleased to find Victor's Aston Martin in front of them. The driver got out and walked over to the passenger side window, which Rachael rolled down. "You guys alright?" Victor asked.

"Oh just dandy" Richard said, "just murdered a couple federal soldiers and wrecked a federal vehicle then committed felony evasion, yeah we're great."

"I got a safehouse about three miles south of here, I was headed there when I heard the gunfire, I followed the two Marauders as they chased you and they have no idea you doubled back. Come with me, we can lie low at my place" Victor offered.

Richard nodded as Victor returned to his car and spun it around, five minutes later the three of them were out of harms way… For now.


	10. Problems

Chapter 10: Problems

* * *

Victor's safehouse was pretty cozy. It was a garage building, but it was very out of the way, you had to drive down a short alley to get to it. It had only two car bays but that was enough, the interior was actually big enough to fit five or six cars, although Victor only used that space for three. His Aston Martin was there obviously, he also had a classic Ferrari 512 Tessarossa in red parked there along with a newer, silver Jaguar XJ220. Richard didn't have trouble finding space for his car. "So what the hell happened you guys?" Vic asked walking over to a corner that was turned into a small living area. There was a large refrigerator behind a bar complete with stools to sit on along with a sectional leather sofa shaped like a "U" with a coffee table in the middle. Aside from that there was a very large flat-screen TV set opposite the sofa.

Rachael removed her shoes and then her jacket, hanging it on a coat rack and her shoes under it, she had been wearing a plain black halter top under the jacket, she then took a seat on the sofa. "Problems arose, ensued… Were overcome" she replied.

Richard had a seat at one of the bar stools. "You remember my empty nitrous tank?" Victor nodded. "Well, we decided to do some snooping and got in a bit over our heads."

"Yeah, we weren't expecting to have a shootout with the feds" Rachael said.

"Feds?" Victor queried.

Richard sighed then said; "Slade was having a meeting with a pair of federal agents and a local detective, we eavesdropped on it and it turns out Slade has been buying off the law."

Victor turned to Rachael, who made eye contact with him and nodded, he then turned back to Richard. "So what do we do about it?"

There was a pause, then Richard spoke up. "I don't know if there's anything we can do… Slade is politically connected, he has more soldiers in his back pocket than the army and enough money to make all of us disappear."

There was a long pause as the topic seemed to die out, at least for the moment, and then Rachael spoke up. "Rich, I gotta get back; I have a race tomorrow night."

"I don't think you wanna go anywhere tonight, no doubt the cops are gonna be out there looking for you" Victor said. "Ya'll can crash here tonight."

"Thanks but no, I need new tires and I also need to fill my nitrous tank" Rachael complained.

"You can either try and go back to the airport and get caught by the cops and spend the rest of your life in federal prison or you can stay here for a day or so and keep your freedom" Richard said coldly.

Rachael glared at him, but he didn't turn to look at her. She sighed and silently admitted defeat. "I do hope you have a shower?" She asked of Victor.

"Right down that hall behind the office" Victor said, pointing in the direction of the hall.

She walked down the hall, it opened into a small office, a desk and file cabinet sat in the corner with a few chairs against the walls. There was a doorway without a door behind the desk, Rachael went through it and found what looked to be like some kind of break room, a table and a few chairs sat in the middle of the room and a small TV sat on one end of a counter while a microwave and mini refrigerator sat on the other end. That's when she found the bathroom, not much to speak of, a toilet, a sink and mirror and bathtub summed it all up. It was at this point that she recalled that she didn't have any additional clothes. "Well… Guess I'll have to wash what I've got" she mused. She filled the sink with water and removed her clothes. She located a bar of soap and a small bottle of shampoo and got into the shower.

* * *

Garfield parked his Barracuda on the tarmac at Clancy Municipal Airfield next to Richard's hanger-slash-garage then entered. "Yo Rich!" He yelled. He got no response so he went deeper into the building, the card room and such, finding no trace of anybody. He walked into the card room and took a seat, he had come to pay Richard for his Chevelle but since nobody was there, he had nothing else to do. That's when he got an idea, he got up and walked to the room Rachael was living in, he knew she wasn't there so he just walked in. He rifled through her clothes and belongings, eventually finding what he was looking for – her car keys. He took them, walked into Richard's hanger where he kept all his cars and then to Rachael's Charger. He couldn't take it anywhere because of the camera's watching the tarmac but inside this hanger there was nothing watching him so he opened the hood. When he got a good look at the engine he had to stop himself from drooling, about the only thing stock on the engine were the bolts keeping it in place, chrome wiring and tubes adorned the engine, he examined it with his eyes until he located what he was looking for – the windshield washer fluid tube. He went into Richard's toolbox and got a pump and gas can He returned to the Charger, drained the washer fluid and then filled the tank with gasoline, then returned the two items to where they belonged. "Heh… Should be an interesting surprise for you bitch…" Garfield chuckled manically. He closed the hood, returned the keys to where he found them and left the airport.

* * *

Back at Victor's safehouse, Rachael had finished her shower. She had no bathrobe nor a fresh set of clothes so she scratched her original idea and put her clothes that she had back on.

Upon returning to the garage, Rachael found Victor and Richard in a game of poker, and she wanted in. "No chips eh?" She queried, sitting down opposite Richard.

"Nah, but we don't really need them, regular money works fine" Victor said, finishing the hand as the looser. We're gonna play with antis instead of blinds, too few people, five bucks to see your cards."

"Sounds good" Rachael said, pulling out her wallet and fishing through it.

Victor dealt out. "So Slade was behind what happened to your nitrous tank?"

"Yep, and what's worse is the feds know about my airport, I'm gonna have to move my operations elsewhere" Richard said, looking at his ace and three of spades and betting ten.

"Which mean's I'm going to have to move too" Rachael said, peeking at her cards then calling.

"Get to be friends with one of the hotel owners, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to hook you up" Victor suggested, calling the ten.

"Eh I don't need rich friends, I have plenty of money" Rachael said.

The flop was the two of diamonds, the two of clubs and the jack of diamonds. "Speaking of, I should probably check my other cars once I get back" Richard said, checking.

Rachael raised ten. "I guess I should check mine too."

Victor called the ten, not adding to the conversation.

Richard called. "Good idea."

The turn card was the five of diamonds, Richard checked.

"Raise ten" Rachael announced. "So are we just going to sit back and let Slade sell us out or are we going to do something about it?"

Victor folded his three of clubs and six of hearts. "I say we get our little circle of allies together and discuss it."

"Good idea, I'll give them all a call tomorrow" Richard said, calling.

The fifth card was the four of spades, Richard now had a strait. "Raise fifteen" he said.

Rachael called, "What's your high card?" She asked.

Richard looked at her funny, he paused for a moment then said "I have a strait to the five if that's what you mean."

"Oh, well then it sucks to be you, I have a queen high flush" Rachael said, showing her queen and nine of diamonds.

Victor shuffled the cards and dealt them out again, it was now Rachael's turn to bet. "Ten."

"Call that" Victor said, it was then that the three of them heard sirens in the distance.

Richard called the ten. "Hey Vic is it normal to hear sirens around here, I mean it's a pretty low populated area this being the industrial district."

"I hear them from time to time, I don't worry about it though" Victor said, revealing the first three cards, the ace of hearts, the nine of diamonds and the seven of hearts.

"Another ten" Rachael said.

"Call that" Victor said.

Richard also called, hearing the sirens getting closer. "How close do they get?"

The ace of clubs was the fourth card. "Sometimes right down the alley" he answered.

The last card was the four of spades. "Check" Rachael said.

"We'll go ten" Victor announced, throwing ten into the pot.

"I'll call you" Richard said.

"I won't" Rachael said, tossing her four and five of hearts.

"What've you got Rich?"

"Trip aces, king high" He said, showing his ace of spades and king of hearts.

"It's yours" Victor said, he had only a two pair of aces over nines. It was right then that the sirens stopped, getting everybody's attention. "Only one reason for that."

"Yup, something's going down" Rachael said.


	11. Racing Italian

Chapter 11: Racing Italian

* * *

The trio of racers went to the roof of the garage. They could tell from the distance of the sirens when they stopped that they weren't after them, but rather making a bust only a couple doors down. They had a clear view of where whatever it was that was happening, was happening. "Anybody you know Vic?" Richard asked.

"Nope, the closest person I know is about two miles in the opposite direction" Victor said.

Rachael noticed something strange, there were a total of seven cruisers there, but the police who occupied them weren't exactly in combat-ready positions. In fact, only a few (three) of them had gotten out of their cars and were at the moment casually walking up to the front door of what looked like a warehouse. They knocked and a few seconds later a young man answered, it took a full thirty seconds for the three racers to realize who it was – Roy Harper. "What… The… Fuck…?" Richard asked nobody in disbelief. It took him a moment to gather himself together. "Victor, did you know Roy had a safehouse here?"

"No, I thought his only place was on the northwest corner of town."

"What is going on?" Rachael asked nobody. This was very unexpected, all three had thought they knew Roy, but Rachael, Rachael had been one of the closest to him before the night she was driven out of town. He had been like a brother to her until that night and now he resented her. Though she really couldn't blame him too much since in the months she was gone she hadn't tried to get in contact with him. But this… Had he been working as a double agent before that night? Was she the reason he did it? Was he even a double agent? There were too many questions and Rachael wasn't one to jump to conclusions.

Richard looked like he wanted to kill somebody. "Holy hell when I get my hands on that-" Rachael cut him off.

"Rich, we don't know what's going on; we should at least let Roy try to explain himself first!"

"She's got a point man, I say we get all our allies together and figure out what's going on before we decide what we're gonna do" Victor agreed.

Reluctantly, Richard calmed down and the three continued to watch, Victor got an idea and after saying he'd be right back, retreated into his garage, returning a ninety seconds later with a top-of-the-line digital camera. He zoomed in on Roy and the cops, taking pictures as the conversation went on. Five minutes passed before the cops and Roy finished speaking and with a handshake, which Victor got on film, parted ways. The police spoke for a few seconds then returned to their cars, lit up the night with their lights and sirens then drove off in the direction they came from. "What the hell?" Victor queried.

"Does Roy know about this garage Vic?" Rachael asked.

"Not to my knowledge, I've tried to keep this one as secret as I could, just in case of a rat you know?"

Rachael knew and so did Richard, and even they hadn't known about this garage before tonight, but since Roy seemed to be taking up residence only a few doors down, it was possible that he knew about it and Victor wasn't aware that his "secret" safehouse wasn't so secret. "Doesn't look like they're coming after us" Rachael said. With that, the three returned inside.

"What the hell was that?!" Richard exclaimed in anger. "I swear if Roy is playing both sides I'll put a bullet in his head myself!"

"Damn clam down Rich, we'll find out what's going on, there might be more to this than we're seeing right now" Rachael begged.

Richard punched the wall, putting a hole in it while Rachael sat down. She leaned back on the comfortable sofa and yawned, stretching her arms into the air, then laid down, pulling one of the pillows under her head. "Alright boys, I've had enough for one night, I'm going to get some sleep" she said.

Victor said, "Yeah good idea, see you guys in the afternoon."

Richard didn't say anything but made his way to the bar, fetched a glass, a bottle of ginger ale and a bottle of whiskey, mixed the two liquids together, stirred, and took one long gulp, downing it faster than it took him to make it. Rachael saw that and shook her head before settling in, falling asleep shortly afterward.

* * *

Toni's race was about to begin, it was a straight-forward circuit race consisting of the standard three laps. The track was out in the desert, so the police crawling all over the city looking for Richard and Rachael weren't going to be a problem. She pulled into position next to a 1999 Mitsubishi 3000GT, it was Ferrari red with a flashy body kit and hood scoop with ten-thousand dollar rims, despite the semi-cheap nature of the car, whoever owned it had money, and Toni was sure that whatever the female driver had under the hood was going to prove a problem. The two other cars in the race seemed to pose a similar threat, one was a 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, a dark green with similar workings as the 3000GT and the final car, the one furthest away from Toni on the lineup, a 2007 Lamborghini Gallardo, standard Lambo yellow with a yellow window tint, no other visual modifications were apparent which meant the owner, a man in his late twenties, had probably dumped most of his money into the engine. Toni's Ferrari sported seven-hundred thirty-eight horsepower, paired up with the lightweight frame and aerodynamic styling that the Ferrari had, and she was packing a bit extra across the playing field.

The girl stepped between the two tuners and signaled the race's beginning. Toni burnt out her tires on the start, moving a good seventy feet or so before they caught traction and rewarding her with an early lead with the Gallardo second and the 3000GT third. she shifted into second and floored it, shifting into third just under four seconds later.

At the top of third gear, Toni and the other racers hit the first turn, a sharp left turn, the italian hit her emergency brake and spun her tires out, drifting around the corner perfectly. The Gallardo and 3000GT were able to do the same, but the driver of the Lancer fluked and spun out, the car faced the wrong way but the driver started up again and shot in the correct direction to try and catch the leaders.

The 3000GT made a move to try and pass the Lambo, managing to get neck to neck on the exotic's right, until the driver (of the Mitsubishi) had to abort the move for a set of S-turns coming up. An S-turn was basically a quick right immediately followed by a quick left, or a quick left followed by a quick right, usually, if you could line yourself up right you could get through them without having to jerk the wheel around.

And that was the case with this S-turn, Toni once again hit her E-brake, drifting the rear end of her car to the left to point the car right, she recovered from the drift in perfect timing to go straight through the S-turn. The Gallardo followed but the 3000GT was going too fast and slid too far left to make a straight line. This is where the Lancer made up some lost seconds; he passed the other Mitsubishi and took third place. It was a high-speed strait-away that followed the S-turn and Toni was already in fifth gear at one-hundred fifty miles an hour with the Gallardo breathing down her tailpipes. She shifted into sixth and floored it, the Italian engine roaring as it went. The next turn was a one-hundred twenty degree left, but it was a long, hairpin turn, Toni was forced to slow to about one-hundred MPH to make the curve and the Gallardo did the same, the turn was made well and Toni punched it upon exiting. There was another strait-away; this one with a ravine on either side and on top of that it was a narrow, two-lane road. Toni stayed to the right so as to stay with the direction of traffic, about a quarter mile down the road her speedometer hit one-forty and the Lambo was making a move to pass, the driver got to Toni's left and slowly was passing by her, they were about neck to neck when a large semi truck was seen barreling down the road right at the Lambo, instead of aborting the pass and getting back into the right lane, the driver of the Lambo hit his nitrous oxide and shot forward of Toni, cutting in front of her just in time to dodge the speeding eighteen wheeler.

The Gallardo entered the final turn (a left) and crossed the start/finish line with Toni about half a second behind him, the Lancer was about a full second behind her and the 3000GT was right up the Lancer's ass. Toni downshifted into second and drifted left, staying as close to the Lambo as she could, she wanted to make a move but knew it wasn't the right time, instead she held her position, knowing that the opportune moment would come.

The 3000GT used its nitrous to pass the Lancer just before the S-turn, which she (the 3000GT driver) was able to enter much better this time, on the first strait-away Toni was able to keep up with the Gallardo and the two exotics increased the distance between them and the tuners, pulling almost three full seconds ahead. They entered the hairpin, Toni still didn't feel conditions were right to pass and so she kept back, despite her urge to get in front of the other Italian car. The second strait-away came along and the exotics put even more distance between them and the Mitsubishis. They passed the final turn of the lap and entered the first of the last, nothing changed that entire distance.

The S-turn came up, the Gallardo slipping too far and Toni taking the opportunity she had been waiting so patiently for, she hit her nitrous and passed him, exiting the S-turn in first place. The strait shot made for an easy hold of first as the Gallardo had fallen behind nearly the distance to the Japanese cars, a full seven seconds behind by this time. Toni came into the hairpin, staying close to the inside and keeping her speed around one-hundred MPH, flooring it into the second strait-away. She looked in her rear-view mirror and was surprised to find the Gallardo had already caught up and was getting ready to pass, she wasn't going to allow that, she shifted into sixth and hit her nitrous for the second time this race, sling-shooting her forward to almost one-eighty.

The final turn came up and Toni entered it well, the Lambo right behind. She floored it, shifted into fifth and hit the nitrous once again; giving her the small amount of distance she needed to secure a first place finish. She turned her car around and returned to the start/finish line to collect her winnings, she made the appropriate arrangements with her banker for the money and stuck around for more of the celebration, twenty minutes later, she was on her way home with a smile on her face, she had just entered level two.


	12. Intervention

Chapter 12: Intervention

* * *

When Toni got back to her safehouse she undressed, throwing her dirty clothes into the washer and then checked her answering machine, one message waiting for her, she pressed the play button and the machine played back Richard's voice. "Toni, we need to meet, all of us, tomorrow at noon at my airport… We may have a rat…"

Toni was surprised and at the same time a little worried. She knew that she would never rat on anybody but she was nervous that Richard's knowledge of this had been shaken. But it couldn't be helped right now, she took a shower and went to bed, tomorrow was going to be interesting…

* * *

The next day Toni, Roy, Kori, Victor, Garfield, Richard and Rachael all got together at Richard's airport. Richard had called them all and left the same message that he had left Toni, only he, Rachael and Victor were able to sit still. "I've called you all here to tell you about something that myself, Rachael and Victor witnessed yesterday…" You could cut the tension with a knife. "As some of you know there was a chase last night, that chase involved myself Victor and Rachael… "He was bending the truth only to save time. "We were able to get away but witnessed one of the people in this room tipping off the cops…" He let that sink in. "Does that person want to come clean and admit it?"

"Or explain what he or she was really doing?" Rachael added, hoping to ease the tension.

This was when Roy began sweating; he looked around, seeing that everybody had their attention on Richard. He had intentionally sat in the back of the room to try and divert attention away from himself and it seemed to be working.

A full minute passed and Richard got tired of waiting, he walked over to his desk and pulled out his gun, pointing it at Roy. "Not even going to own up to it Harper!?" He yelled.

Roy fell out of his seat in horror from Richard's display of aggression. He slowly got back into his seat, saying: "Rich, come on, you should know me better than that…"

"For God's sake Richard put the fucking gun away!" Rachael demanded. Everybody else had their eyes fixed onto Roy, save for Victor, who had his attention on Richard.

"We saw you Roy! The cops came to your place and casually asked you some questions; don't try to tell me that they were just asking directions!"

"Rich please! Let me explain!" He begged.

"Richard!" Rachael yelled loud enough to be heard outside. "Put… The gun… Away" she demanded again, this time in a much more controlled tone. Richard did not do what she said but the whole room went silent. Rachael walked over to him and in front of the bad side of the gun, blocking Richard's fix on Roy. "This isn't going to solve anything… Put the gun away and let's hear his side of the story." Her violet eyes bored into his blue ones for a good twenty seconds before Richard withdrew and put the gun back in his desk. "Thank you…" Rachael said, then she turned to Roy. "Roy, I was there too, I saw what happened and I know what it looks like, you owe us an explanation."

Roy took a deep breath. "Three months ago I got into a chase and got caught by the fuzz… They were telling me about an operation that they were trying to get going to tear down the Underground but they needed somebody on the inside, they made me a deal that if I go undercover they'll let me off."

"So it was exactly what it looked like?" Victor asked.

"No, no it wasn't."

"Then what was it?" Richard asked in an irritated but much calmer tone.

"I've been trying to feed them wrong information… I never told them about how the seven of us are allies and so I never tell them about anything about our events, if they ask specifically, I don't know anything about it."

The room went silent again, Roy could feel every eye in the room on him so he found a spot on the floor and stared. Rachael turned to Richard, who only looked back at her so she returned her attention to Roy.

"You're telling us the truth?" She asked him.

"Yes, every word, I've been giving them wrong information I swear!"

Two full minutes passed before anybody spoke again, Garfield was the one to break the silence. "You broke the rules Roy, if you get caught you don't say _anything_ about _anybody._"

"He's right…" Richard added. "This is a breach of security, we need to do something about it."

Victor spoke. "I think I have a better idea" everybody turned to him. "If the cops are looking to you for information on the Underground, I think we can use it against our enemies."

"You're not suggesting…" Kori asked.

"You bet I am, now I'm not saying we hang everybody out to dry, but those who have broken the rules already, namely, Slade."

"That's a good point, he has been buying off the law so it was far easier for him to get the top rank in the Underground." Rachael said.

"Wait… He's been doing what?" Toni asked.

"The chase we told you about happened because me and Rach eavesdropped on a meeting between Slade and a couple lawmen, both of us saw plain as day Slade paying them off" Richard explained.

"This changes things…" Garfield said.

"It sure does" Kori added.

"That's not all…" Rachael said. "He's leaking information himself to the cops, trying to eliminate his competition by getting them behind bars, so I say we see to it that he gets his."

Everybody in the room nodded. "So what's our first course of action?" Richard asked Victor.

Victor was a little surprised that Richard was asking him. "You're asking me? You're the one who leads this little band but if you want my opinion I say you ask everybody else, see what they think then make a decision."

Richard took his advice, he asked everybody else and they all had the same opinion, it was a good idea. "You all do realize that this is thin ice we're going too be treading on?" He commented. "We get caught and nobody will ever trust us again."

Everybody thought for a moment, but eventually all agreed that it was worth it.

"Well Roy, seems you might have to make friends with Slade" Garfield teased.

Roy normally would've fired back but he felt he didn't have the right to speak at the moment so he just nodded.

"Alright then, on another note I believe this safehouse has been compromised." Richard said.

"Based on what?" Kori asked.

"Based on what I heard Slade say last night, he's leaked this location to Detective Rouge, although it's doubtful that she'll be making any big moves very soon. So on that note within the next forty-eight hours I'll be moving my main operation to my desert location."

Everybody knew about Richard's desert safehouse, but only Rachael had ever been there. In truth it didn't look like much, what was supposed to be an abandoned airport, a dirt landing strip and an old hanger were all that was left of it. It was about four miles away from the city limits but was still considered to be within the city jurisdiction. In truth, the city council wanted it demolished but Richard was paying the Mayor off to keep it up, arguing that there was no need to and it would be money wasted.

"Keep your eyes on your rear view on the way back to your safe houses, Rouge may have eyes on this airport." Rachael amended and with that, Victor, Kori, Garfield and Toni returned to their cars, Richard held Roy back however.

"You and I still have to talk" Richard said.

Rachael didn't want to be part of that conversation. "I'm going to go pack my things and move to the desert, I'll see you there" She said. Richard nodded and the young lady left the room, heading for hers.

* * *

Rachael packed her DVD player and DVD's along with her clothes into a suitcase. She debated on whether she should take the TV too but decided against it, surely there was a TV at the other safehouse, and hopefully a refrigerator and cooking items too. She packed her one suitcase into the back seat of her car and drove off, desert bound.

* * *

Kori rounded a corner and then another in the opposite direction, she was trying to find out if the car behind her was following her. Sure enough, the white 2005 Chrysler Crossfire was following her. It hadn't been there since the airport, only since about five minutes ago when she had crossed Liberty Boulevard. It was time for some evasive maneuvers, she shifted into third and floored it, her tires screeching at the sudden burst of acceleration.

The Crossfire did the same thing, whoever was in it wanted to get to Kori but this was midday, traffic was a serious issue right now but that didn't stop either of these drivers. Kori ducked around an old Buick and made a hard right, her rear tires drifting outward.

The Crossfire matched her move and made the turn just as well as Kori. The redhead dropped the clutch and threw her 350Z into fourth, flooring it afterward. Her speedometer hit one-twenty-five when she shifted into fifth along the wide open four lane road in front of her.

The Crossfire was not easily dissuaded, the driver matched Kori's speed but there was a problem, they were coming up to a four-way intersection and they had a red light. Kori saw this and didn't hesitate, she took a quick look in either direction of the cross traffic and saw an opening. She shifted into sixth and hit her nitrous, shooting forward to over one-hundred seventy MPH. She swerved into opposing lanes and entered the intersection, making it across the northbound traffic as a large SUV in the first southbound lane passed in front of her, just barely making it out of the way with less than an arms length to spare. She sped across the second southbound lane and cut off a family sedan, forcing its driver to slam on the brakes and in turn causing the semi truck behind it to smash into it's rear end, destroying the car and causing even more of a pile up. The crashes quickly blocked the northbound lanes and soon the entire intersection was a pile of wrecked cars and trucks.

The Crossfire nearly ended up part of that pile but in a stunning move swerved into a gas station parking lot, around the now seventeen car wreck, into another gas station across the street and back onto the road. The driver floored it but Kori now had a commanding lead against him. She sliced her speed to less than a third of how fast she was going to make a right turn, trying to stay in the dense city streets. She kept moving for two blocks, then, seeing the Crossfire rounding the turn she had made not two minutes ago, made another right. She quickly made her first available left and then another left, where she stopped behind a small building and waited.

Thirty seconds passed, then a minute, ninety seconds after she had come to a stop the Crossfire appeared behind her again, Kori quickly shifted back into gear and slammed on the accelerator, the chase was on again.


	13. Move Out

Chapter 13: Moving Out

* * *

Kori drifted back onto the main road, sliding across opposing lanes of traffic and forcing an older Mercedes sedan to slam on its brakes. She shifted into third and was off, the Crossfire not far behind. The redhead figured to try the train yard not far from where they were, several crossings that had a train going over at least one of them every five minutes, it was risky, but right now her best option.

She made a left onto Network Drive, a two-lane, but open road that gave access to a bunch of warehouses. She flew past them at over one-hundred twenty, making the gentle curve that opened the road up to the train yard. Of course it was her luck that the only crossing that was flashing was the one furthest away from her, she pushed the accelerator into the floor, hoping to get across the tracks before the train and doing a number on her suspension in the process. She was about to shift into fifth gear when she realized she wasn't going to make it, she stomped on the brakes and clutch, her tires skidding as she turned the wheel to the right, spinning the car ninety degrees and to a stop only a dozen or so feet from the freight train that was barreling across the road. Kori looked to her right; the Crossfire had come to a stop about fifty yards away, she could feel the driver staring at her through the tinted glass. She quickly looked around, trying to find a way out but there really wasn't any aside from the way she came. That left her with one option, she shifted into neutral and set her parking brake, she then opened her glove box a pulled out a Beretta 92FS, she cocked the weapon and got out of her car, kneeling next to the driver's side fender and firing over the hood. She fired all fifteen shots directly at the Crossfire, one of the shots must've hit since the driver threw it into reverse and peeled out going backward, after she had emptied the gun's magazine the Crossfire was still going backward – right into the path of another train. The two collided, the car exploding on impact as the train pushed it a good football field before being able to stop completely.

That blocked the way Kori came in, but the first train's last car had just gone by, opening up her escape route, she jumped back in her car and drove off, figuring she was safe for now.

* * *

Rachael arrived at Richard's desert safehouse, finding it had been through a couple changes since she was last there. It now had everything a garage should have, car lifts included. Looking around, she saw a door marked "tires," she walked through it and saw that Richard had a stockpile of racing tires here, she found a set that would fit her Charger, inspected each of them and figured she'd pay Richard back, an hour later the new tires were on.

Rachael explored more of the hanger; this building was easily big enough to store several small airplanes, or two, maybe three very big ones. She walked over to a corner which, like Victor's safehouse in the industrial district, had been turned into a living area. Two sofas adjacent to each other, a coffee table between them, a TV which Rachael estimated to be thirty or maybe thirty-two inches, a refrigerator and countertop space along with a sink, microwave, toaster and even a dishwasher and lastly a large shelf stocked with food.

"Cozy" She mused to herself, wondering where the beds and bathroom were. She then noticed a walled-off area opposite the living area, she walked the football field of length that separated them and found a rooming area, three separate rooms, two bedrooms, each with two beds and a good sized dresser between them. The third room was a bathroom and it was across a small hallway that made for access to the rooms. "Well, I guess that's where they are."

Rachael returned to her car and brought her things to one of the bedrooms. She hooked up her DVD player to the TV and flopped down on one of the couches, it was still early, only about six-ish she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Toni.

"Hello?" Toni answered in her British accent.

"Hey Toni, it's Raven."

"Hey, where were you last night?"

"Had an issue, couldn't make it" Rachael answered.

"I see, pricks still giving you trouble?" Toni queried.

"Nothing of late but I'm sure I'll be getting more in the future, it hasn't even been two weeks, listen I actually have a question for you."

"Oh?"

"I need to know when the next race is for the number nine spot."

"Well let me take a look…" Toni answered; Rachael could hear papers being shuffled in the background. "Tier two has a number nine rank spot scheduled three nights from tonight."

"Good, what track?" Rachael asked.

"Hope you have something fast, two laps on Outer Ring."

"Oh no worries, my Charger will have everything I need since it's only a number nine rank." The Outer Ring track was just about as simple a track as they come. The city had a highway that pretty much completely surrounded it, it was impossible to enter or exit the city without crossing it and so it made for a high-speed track. "What time?"

"Two AM, supposedly it's going to be raining that night too, gonna turn the dirt on the sides of the road into mud" Toni said.

"Well I guess I'll just have to stay off the sides of the road then" Rachael answered.

"That's generally a good idea for any race."

Rachael giggled. "Very true, okay, I've gotta go I'll talk to you later."

"Bye" Toni said and they hung up.

* * *

Rachael Walked over to the refrigerator and took a look inside, finding an unopened bottle of Schweppes Ginger Ale. "Perfect" she said, placing the bottle on the countertop. "Now please tell me he's got some scotch around here someplace…" She said to herself looking inside the shelves. The second one she looked in had some as well as vodka and rum; she grabbed the scotch and poured herself a drink. This was unusual for her, she never smoked and rarely drank but right now she felt she needed something to help calm herself down. She didn't down it all in one gulp but rather had some etiquette and sat down, put on a movie and let that one drink last the entire length of it.

* * *

Richard had finished his talk with Roy and was now packing up his most important belongings. He owned a tractor trailer truck with a fifty foot trailer plenty large enough to fit four of his cars in at once plus a good portion of his other belongings and right now he was loading it up. He kept this truck behind his converted hanger as he solemnly found use for it. He loaded his poker table, several chairs and a few other items into the back followed by his four favorite cars, his Lamborghini, Chevelle, Lancer and '69 Charger, he'd have to come back for the others.

He put the truck into gear and started off, a few minutes later he came to a stop light, when he stopped his cell began to ring. "Hello?"

"Rich, Kori" Came Kori's voice.

"Hey, what's up?"

"I just had an interesting thing happen to me" She said.

"Oh?" Richard asked, curious.

"Yeah somebody chased me through town in broad daylight" She said matter-of-factly.

Richard took a second to put a sentence together to respond to that. "Somebody chased you?" Was all he could come up with.

"Yeah, a white Crossfire, didn't get a look at the driver but he damn near got me killed" Kori explained.

"Plate number?" Richard asked.

"Didn't catch it."

"Okay, where'd you loose him?"

Kori took a deep breath then said; "The train yard, but the cops have probably already scavenged the wreck, so we're only left with hunches."

"Speaking of, I have one" Richard suggested.

"Slade?" Kori assumed.

"No… That's too indirect and too public for Slade… But not for someone close to him" Richard explained.

"Who?"

"Tara Markov."

* * *

The rest of the phone conversation included a surprised reaction from Kori and an agreement between the two to meet tomorrow at Kori's safehouse, just the two of them. In the meantime Richard had just arrived at his new base of operations and was backing his semi into the hanger. Rachael came out and yelled jokingly; "Hey mack! This ain't no truck stop!"

Richard hopped out of the cab and said to Rachael "Maybe not but it does belong to me."

"Got the essentials?" Rachael queried.

"Oh yes, the documents are in there along with the poker table and four of my babies."

"Well, let's unload it" Rachael said. The two spent the next twenty minutes offloading the semi, parking the cars in a corner and putting the poker table in a temporary storage spot, the Underground documents were placed into a fireproof safe.

"What about the other cars?" Rachael asked.

"Gonna have to go back for them, but not tonight, I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a long day."

"Why do you say that?" Rachael queried, curious.

"Well…" Richard hesitated, He had agreed that he and Kori meet alone for a reason but figured that if anybody could be trusted with sensitive information it was Rachael. "Don't repeat this, but Kori was chased through town today on her way back from our little meeting."

Rachael quirked an eyebrow. "By who?" She asked.

"Don't know, but she and I are meeting tomorrow to see if we can find out" Richard explained.

"Please tell me you're not going on another late night spy mission?"

"Heh, no, I'm gonna call a friend of mine in the city PD and see if he can get me copies of the crime scene photos."

"Crime scene photos?"

Richard explained about the train and how there was little doubt that the scene had been cleared by the police.

"Gotta love that train yard…" Rachael commented. "By the way I've got another race in a few days, and I want to be sure to make it."

"No complaints here." Richard said.


	14. Not Fooling Around

Chapter 14: Not Fooling Around

* * *

Richard pulled into Kori's garage in his Lancer, he wasn't planning on making this last too long. He entered through the front door and upon a quick scan of the room from the spot just inside the door it appeared that nobody was home. "Kori!?" He yelled. The only response he got was a clicking sound from his left and slightly behind. He quickly spun around to find Kori half hidden in the shadows, putting her berretta on a countertop.

"Can't be too safe these days" she commented.

"Especially considering what we do for a living" Richard said back.

"So you think Tara was the one who sent that driver after me?" Kori asked, walking towards Richard.

"It's my best guess, Slade wouldn't have taken that approach, he's more of an ambush person" Richard said.

Kori stopped right in front of Richard; barely a foot separated the two. "So what are we gonna do about it?" She queried, shifting her weight to one leg.

"Maybe it's time to start packing hotter pieces" Richard suggested, referring to their guns. "I know a guy who can get me anything I need, weapons, cars, license plates, ammo, you name it."

"Should come in handy" Kori said, obviously not paying too close attention.

"Kori?"

"Yes?"

"Stop adjusting my shirt."

Once Richard made the comment about his friend Kori had begun to lazily tug and pull at Richard's black shirt. "Oh… I'm sorry" She said with a sly smile.

"I didn't come here to flirt, I came to give some information and maybe get some in return" Richard said stone faced.

"Well that's all well and good Rich…" Kori began, unbuttoning the top two buttons of her shirt, "But whoever said you shouldn't mix business with pleasure never thought that people would make a living the way we do." As she finished her sentence she finished unbuttoning her shirt. She wrapped her arms around Richard's neck and went to kiss him but she felt a cold steel object press against her abdomen. She looked down to find Richard had his gun to her.

"I'm serious" Richard said in monotone.

Kori glared at him and pulled away, buttoning her shirt back up. "I first noticed the driver about five minutes after I left your airport…" She explained everything that happened the previous day, not leaving out any details.

"No plate number nor a description of the driver…" Richard said aloud to himself. "Well I can get both of those with a phone call. In the meantime lay low, I'll make some phone calls and get to the bottom of this little incident."

"Richard, I have a race in two days" Kori informed, irritated.

"Hey, I'm giving you advice it's up to you to listen to it or not" and with that Richard turned to leave.

Kori put her hand on his shoulder as he was about to open the door. "I gave you what you wanted…" Kori said in a seductive tone. She tugged on his shoulder and he turned to face her. "Now there's something I want…" She pressed her lips to his and it didn't take long before their tongues were locked. They kissed for barely less than a minute before Kori pulled back.

"So I have to pay my allies for information that's vital to both of our survivals and freedoms?" Richard asked.

"Yup" Kori said, embracing the man in another kiss.

* * *

Rachael was making lazy on one of the sofas in the hanger slash garage slash house. She heard a door open then close, figuring it was Richard she called out his name, and got no response.

Her instincts kicked in and she immediately knew something wasn't right. She got up from the sofa and knelt in front of it, looking over the top. She scanned the hanger but saw nobody. "Fuck" she quietly cursed, she was unarmed and her gun was in her bedroom. She walked to the wall and slowly made her way across to the other side, watching the entire hanger like a hawk. She eventually arrived at the separated rooms and retrieved her gun. She cautiously walked back into the open area and looked around again, still she saw nothing out of the ordinary, until she looked at her car, there was something, or somebody behind it. "HEY!" she yelled. An orange flash and a loud bang echoed through the hanger and a bullet narrowly missed Rachael's face and got implanted in the wall behind her. Instead of firing back she rolled to one side and behind a stack of pallets. She gathered herself together and took a deep breath, then peeked around the pallets, whoever was behind her car wasn't there anymore which means whoever it was either fled or relocated to a new hiding spot. Rachael was more inclined to believe the former, whoever it was didn't want to be seen and despite nearly giving her a bullet in the head she didn't believe they wanted to add murder to the trespassing charge, if they were looking to kill her they would've fired more than once.

Still, Rachael quickly but carefully made her way to the hanger light switches and turned all of them on, the entire building was now brightly lit, she looked around and didn't see anybody, she figured she had been standing still plenty long enough for whoever it was to take a kill shot. She was convinced she was once again alone and so returned to the sofa, this time leaving all the lights on and keeping her weapon close.

Garfield ran as fast as his legs would take him up the steep hill. He stopped for only a second to look back, Rachael hadn't followed him out of the hanger, meaning she hadn't seen him get away and also probably didn't know that it was him who had nearly shot her in the head. He took a deep breath and continued up the hill, his Barracuda was waiting on the other side.


	15. Outer Ring

Chapter 15: Outer Ring

* * *

It was one fifty one and Rachael had just arrived at the starting line of the Outer Ring. She got some looks and wondered if it was because of who she was or what she was wearing; a dark red sports bra with a black micro miniskirt, whenever she moved her legs it would rise to give the pigs a look at her black hipster panties. The outfit was accessorized by black nylon fingerless gloves that went half way up her forearm along with black thigh-high nylons finished off with an interesting choice of footwear – combat boots. She was more interested in staying comfortable during her race, heels didn't work well and sneakers didn't absorb shock from hard presses on the pedals.

She took a short walk, five opponents, all of them a step up from the last race. One young man was driving a '67 Camaro, black with flames on the hood, classic muscle car look. Original rims, adding to the value of the car with a yellow window tint, engine workings unknown.

Her next enemy was another young man, driving a light blue Ford Focus ZX3. He had flame decals similar to the Camaro's although they were in blue, accenting the color of the car. A large spoiler sat on top of it and Rachael silently wondered if it made the car tail heavy. The driver happened to have his hood up and Rachael was impressed by what she saw, however not worried.

Another young man was vying for the number nine rank tonight and Rachael was beginning to wonder if flame decals were the current rave. This driver had chosen an older Ford F150 pickup as his weapon, maybe a '94 or '95. It was lowered to the ground with high end rims and a lime green paintjob with green flames along the hood and front fenders, just like the previous three racers. Unlike cars, trucks had unique ways to be modified, one of these ways was manipulated by this truck's owner, a visor over the windshield, it added an aggressive look to the truck however few took into consideration that it killed gas mileage by greatly increasing drag and at the same time made the vehicle slower. Rachael didn't bother looking at the truck's engine; she had a strong feeling that it would pose little threat.

Contender number four was another young man, however not as young as the previous three; this one was possibly as old as his early thirties. He was driving another tuner – a '93 Toyota Supra. This man was not creative Rachael saw as he had copied the look of the Supra from the original "The Fast and the Furious" orange paintjob with a warrior decal. Also the same spoiler with the same rims, the sight made Rachael roll her eyes and briefly wonder if he could be charged with copyright infringement if he were to get caught. He didn't have his hood up so the only other thing to cross her mind was if he had also copied the car's engine, if he did she was in for a challenge.

The final driver in the race was driving a grey '02 Honda Civic, black window tint and rims, nothing else, and the female driver wasn't showing under her hood.

The race was about to start, Rachael returned to her car and got into position, two rows of three, the Civic and Camaro in front, the F150 behind the Camaro with Rachael behind him and to Rachael's left was the Supra with the Focus in front of him.

The race initiator was a tall black woman, standing a good five foot ten or so, she stepped between the Civic and Camaro and due to the truck in front of her, out of Rachael's view. The only way she knew that the race had begun was because the other vehicles burnt out.

This gave Rachael an early last place position but that wasn't going to last long. Even at this hour there was still some traffic on this highway, Rachael pulled to the far right lane and passed around an old Dodge pickup then quickly cut it off by swerving into his lane to get around a semi.

That was when the rain started, and it started hard. It was as if somebody took a fire hose and sprayed it right at Rachael's windshield, reducing visibility to near zero. Still she punched it, topping one-hundred twenty down the straightaway.

Due to the torrential rain Rachael didn't know what position she was in, not knowing who she had passed or who was still in front of her. She saw the approaching turn, a long ninety degree bend to the right, she got into the middle lane of the five lane road and began to turn at over ninety. She felt the car slide outward and then a sound she didn't want to hear - metal impacting metal. She sideswiped another vehicle as she turned, not knowing if it was one of the other racers or not made her feel that much less comfortable. She let off the accelerator to regain control, slowing rolling to a more manageable seventy miles per hour.

She got back going straight and dodged around a white '96 Chevy Malibu. She went under an overpass and like magic when she came out the other side the rain had nearly stopped, it was now a light shower, she could see infinitely better and also determine that she was in third place, the F150 in second with the Supra in the lead. Rachael turned her wipers on high to try and clear her windshield then floored it, hitting one-hundred forty then drifting around a minivan. She pressed her nitrous and jerked forward, hitting one-seventy seven as she walked past the F150 then in front of him to evade a Chrysler 300.

She was now at one-hundred eighty five and almost in the back seat of the Supra. The driver of the Toyota hit his nitrous and pulled forward, increasing the gap between by several meters. Rachael intentionally stayed right behind him to draft then the time came. A slow moving semi hauling steel rods was directly in front of them. The Supra swerved to the left and Rachael went right, she sling-shotted forward only to have to slam on her brakes but still ended up rear-ending the green Ford Escort wagon that was hidden beside the large truck. Due to the size and weight difference between the two cars Rachael's Charger sustained only minimal damage, denting her front bumper and knocking it loose, the Escort was totaled, the entire rear end was crushed in and it was sent flying forward, swerving to the right and off the road. Rachael took a deep breath and composed herself then shifted back down to third as she was still rolling at sixty, she stepped on the accelerator and started forward again.

The second turn came up, it was much like the first and for that matter the third and fourth too, long and hard. This time Rachael didn't slide but was able to keep stable the whole way. The Supra had made some distance and now the Camaro had overtaken the F150 and was trying to take second. Rachael cut the Camaro off then floored it, shifting into fifth at one-hundred thirty. She hit her nitrous again, shooting forward and shifting into sixth at one-hundred sixty. She was now pulling away from the Camaro and catching up to the Supra, seems its driver had copied the movie under the hood too.

More cars were dodged as Rachael continued to close the distance between her and the Supra. She could hear her front bumper hitting the ground, that eerie sound of fiberglass scraping against asphalt was heard and Rachael couldn't ignore it, it made her nervous wondering if it would break loose and flatten her tires. The bumper itself was not important, it was very easy to replace but her tires were another story.

She drifted around a Porsche Cayman, its driver uninvolved in the race and downshifted into fourth to take the third turn. Taking a turn at one-hundred ten was always an adrenaline rush but more so when you added the traffic variable. Rachael barely missed a brand new Mitsubishi Gallant, dodging on the left only to have to turn harder to avoid a Mercedes CL65 in the fast lane. Rachael's left rear fender ended up clipping the side of the German full size, had either of them been driving something smaller both of them would be needing an ambulance right now but since both cars were so heavy there was only a startling jerk felt by both drivers.

About half way between turn three and turn four Rachael was able to get right behind the Toyota again. She swerved right to try and pass but was having trouble getting the car to accelerate, she diverted her eyes to her instruments to find herself at one-hundred ninety and bottoming out the tachometer. She was at top speed and somehow the copycat was able to stay ahead of her, she went around a Nissan Altima coupe and had a two second debate with her self about using more nitrous, which she decided against as the fourth turn was coming up.

The driver of the Supra began to slow before Rachael did, allowing her to pass by him by a car length before she too had to slow down, cutting her speed to a buck fifteen. Rachael's car slid across all five lanes as she took the turn somehow missing all the traffic in the process. The Supra nearly took out another car on his turn, slowing him down and allowing Rachael to make some distance. Rachael flew over the start/finish line at a blinding speed followed by the Toyota then the Camaro which was fighting to keep third place against the F150.

The second lap presented a new obstacle, five vehicles created a wall on the highway, passing them was only possible on the shoulder and that's what Rachael did. She swerved right and drifted around the right most vehicle, a red Pontiac Vibe, kicking up mud as she went. The wet dirt slopped up against Rachael's windshield and passenger side windows, she shot what she thought was windshield washer fluid at it and turned on the wipers. The gasoline acted like washer fluid well enough that the woman driving the car didn't suspect anything different however her windshield was now glazed with flammable liquid.

She took the first turn at one-ten, traffic seemed to be thinning out but that meant that her contenders were also at an advantage. Rachael was able to make past the second turn before the Toyota caught up to her and began trying to overtake her. Rachael was able to defend her position until the third turn. She slid to the outside of the turn but the Supra was able to turn tighter, obtaining the lead.

As soon as she was clear of the third turn, Rachael hit her nitrous, she let go of the button only long enough to shift into fifth then hit it again. A buck fifty came up and she released the button again to shift into sixth. Her front bumper was now right beside the front wheel of the Toyota, she was to the smaller car's right and the fourth turn was approaching. The two drivers slowed at the same time, staying next to each other. Rachael's car slid more than the Supra and the two ended up connecting on the side, Rachael's loose bumper locking to the wheel well of the Japanese car.

After exiting the final turn both drivers tried to turn away from each other to break the lock. At one-seventy this was a risky move. Seven hundred feet remained before the end of the race when the two cars were able to separate, at a high cost.

The Supra spun out of control and into the median, demolishing the car and most likely killing the driver. Rachael's Charger swerved right but instead of spinning the car flipped onto its roof and began cart wheeling along, fiberglass shrapnel flying everywhere as her car flipped over the finish line. It continued to flip for another eighty feet before coming to a rest on its roof.

Rachael's eyes fluttered open once she felt the car come to a rest. She was dizzy beyond belief and her whole body was in pain but that was going to have to wait, her windshield was on fire, the gasoline had ignited from the sparks and were now posing a serious explosion hazard. She removed her seatbelt and fell forward, after a brief squirming session she was able to open the door and crawl out. Toni was there to help her up. "Dammit Raven what the hell was that?! We've gotta get out of here NOW!" She yelled. Sirens could be heard in the distance as Toni shoved the injured girl into the passenger side of her Ferrari then jumped into the driver's seat, peeling out to avoid any entanglements with the cops.


	16. New Ride

Chapter 16: New Ride

* * *

Toni's Ferrari screamed through the streets, she had chosen to flee the scene of the race right in the direction of where the police were approaching. She made a hard right at eighty miles an hour, the rear of her car drifting to the outside; she released the gas and let the car right itself, then punched it.

Rachael groaned as she shifted in the passenger seat. She was slouched and her face was resting on the leather armrest. "Hold on Raven!" Toni yelled as she pulled on the parking brake and jerked the wheel to the left, spinning the rear wheels and turning the car almost completely around, she then started down the small residential street, leaving the cops, who were driving a mixture of Dodge Chargers, Durango's and a small number of Crown Victoria's to take that same turn, but not nearly as fast. "Ha! Bloody pigs can't match a _real_ driver!"

Toni's little moment left her eating her words as there were more police coming right at her from this street. "Oh hell!" She screamed in frustration, turning the wheel sharply to the right to go down a side street. From the looks of it, it was a good thing that it was the hour it was otherwise Toni would be dodging bouncing balls, and the little kids running after them. This street was narrow and winding; the Italian girl couldn't bring her high-performance car much beyond sixty and if she was driving anything of lesser quality, wouldn't be able to hit even that.

The upside was that the cops couldn't keep up, the bulky muscle cars, SUVs and luxury sedans didn't have the maneuverability. After what seemed like hours the street ended at a T intersection, Toni stopped and listened, closing her eyes and focusing her hearing beyond the hum of her engine, she heard no sirens so she dove into her glove box and pulled out a mini police scanner, very similar to Richard's. "_On Russo Parkway right now, still no contact_" A male voice said.

"_Copy four-seventeen, I've got more units heading your way from the opposite direction, we're gonna sandwich 'em._" A female voice said.

Toni's heart sank, this main road she had come out to was Russo Parkway and it seemed like it didn't matter which direction she went in, she'd be getting intercepted. She still didn't hear any sirens, leading her to believe that they still weren't close, she quickly launched the car to the right and took it as fast as it would go, there was a small dirt road that she knew of about three quarters of a mile down, she made a gambit that she could get to it before the cops.

At the half mile point Toni began to hear it, she listened closely, a single cruiser was ahead of her, and a sixteenth of a mile before the dirt road was when she saw him ahead, she changed her strategy to something a bit more… Risky. At one-twenty she drove right at the lone cop in a game of chicken, she had a feeling the cop would take his chances and let the Ferrari hit him, the difference between the two cars being overwhelming, his Crown Victoria would protect him.

At the last possible second, Toni hit her E-brake and steered right, then left. The result was nothing short of a spectacular maneuver, she drifted to the side of the cruiser, missing the much larger car by inches then slid back onto her line. The cop couldn't believe it, he turned around in his seat to try and make sense of what he'd just witnessed and ended up plowing into a light post at ninety miles an hour.

"WHOOOO!" The British mix whooped. Her mind was distracted once again however by another groan from her passenger; Toni pulled onto a small back road, followed it for about half a mile then turned left into a driveway which lead into a three car garage. She parked her exotic and made sure the (garage) door closed, then attended to her injured friend. She walked Rachael into the house the garage was attached to and laid her down on the sofa. Toni looked her over, a cut on the upper side of her head which had been bleeding, leaving two trails of crimson down the side of her head just forward of her ear, also a good gash on her left forearm, most likely from broken glass. The girl who could still walk on her own got a pair of scissors from the kitchen and cut the other girl's top off, it was already pretty obvious that she had a good seatbelt bruise on her torso; Toni wondered if the girl had suffered any internal injuries.

The injury on her forearm was more severe than the one on her head, so Toni tended to that first. She closely inspected it to make sure there was no glass in it and after determining that there wasn't wrapped the entire arm up in medical tape and gauze then moved onto the other cut, she cleaned it and covered it with more gauze and a strand of tape, that was when she noticed Rachael's left collarbone was broken. "Oh lovely, that's probably what you were moaning about" Toni said thinking of what she could do to help it heal, after deciding there wasn't anything, she said; "alright, you're all patched up, now you have to rest" not sure if Rachael could hear her or not as the other girl's eyes were closed. She returned to the kitchen, picked up her cell and dialed Richard.

It rang several times before Richard picked up. "This better be good Toni I was in a dead sleep." She explained everything to him and all of a sudden he was wide awake. "Okay, I'll be right there."

* * *

Thirteen hours passed before Rachael woke up, then another twelve passed in waiting for things to calm down outside. "You know I've always wondered why it took such a short time for the cops to give up in this city" Toni mused.

"Police Chief gets a sizable paycheck every month to do that" Richard answered.

Toni tilted her head, figuring it made sense. "Well then, if you'll excuse me I have to clean all the blood out of my car since little miss rank and file decided to crash hers."

All three racers smiled. Rachael was able to move on her own now, although with a barely noticeable limp as she had hit her ankle in the crash. She and Richard walked outside to his Chrysler, the same one they had been chased in only days earlier. They got almost halfway back to the desert before either of them said anything. "So what now?" It was Richard who spoke.

"I need a new car" Rachael said simply.

* * *

Roy opened his front door; it was the only way to stop the person on the other side from pounding on it. "What?" He asked rudely.

"I think you know what" Detective Rouge replied in her Russian accent.

"I know a lot of things, which of them might you want to know about?"

"A race on the highway early morning yesterday."

"What about it?" Roy asked calmly.

"I want a list of the participants" Rough demanded.

Roy quirked an eyebrow. "We uh, don't file who takes part in a race" he explained.

"That's not what my other people tell me" Rough said.

_Other people? _Roy thought to himself, he figured that she meant other racers in the Underground, meaning that the entire organization may be in serious jeopardy. He hid his concern, "Is that so? Well maybe you should talk to them then, I don't keep track of those things."

"Be warned Harper… It's not just jail that you're to avoid" the Russian said, turning to leave.

Roy closed the door and took a long deep breath; he was right where every racer didn't want to be, under the fuzz's thumb.

* * *

Rachael took the city's local transit to a car dealership the following day. She had a good car in mind to buy, but she wasn't going to let the dealer take her for a ride. After a test drive of the new vehicle she and the tall man she wanted to buy it from sat down for a chat that lasted about ninety seconds, once you drop forty-thousand dollars in cash on a dealer's desk he's not going to turn away, even if the car she was buying was closer to fifty-thousand. She gave the dealer specific instructions to send the car to an address she had written down for him and leave it in the parking lot, she'd take it from there. The man was skeptical but another ten grand took care of his thoughts, and his mouth.

The address was an auto body shop that specialized in more than your everyday fenders, if you had the money and connections to get them. As soon as Rachael walked in she was greeted with open arms, a sharp contrast to the welcomes the racers were giving her. After some catching up she sat down with the shop's sketch artist, she told him the make and model of her new car and the man got what looked like a blueprint of it, but it was more of a sketching pad used to design the outer look of a car. Twenty minutes later Rachael had her design. Her car was delivered shortly after and brought into the shop. "Alright Raven, give us a day and we'll have it ready for you" The artist said.

"Look forward to it" she replied, reaching for her cell to get Richard to pick her up.

The following twenty-four hours were spent mostly in front of the TV for Rachael, she needed to stay off her ankle and give her collarbone a break, she was right handed but she steered with her left hand only so if she wanted to drive again she need to let it heal.

Her cell rang. "Hello?" She answered.

"It's ready" the voice on the other end said.

* * *

Another trip on the local transit got her to the shop. She walked in and was escorted to the backroom. "What did she dyno?" Rachael asked.

The man walking beside her smiled, "Eight-hundred seventy-two horses with almost as much torque, we had to reinforce the frame to make it strong enough to withstand all the power, if we kept it like it was you'd twist the chassis off the line."

Rachael was now smiling, her Charger, for all its ups had some serious downs, the car was very large, making it difficult to drive, it also weighed almost two and a half tons and with all the modifications she had in it the car was getting four miles to the gallon, even for a girl with the money she had that was a painful expense.

The two rounded a corner and Rachael nearly passed out, the gentlemen at the shop had done a top-notch job on her new car. She had bought a 2009 Dodge Challenger R/T; it had been painted a glossy black with two parallel racing stripes along the hood, over the roof and trunk lid, these stripes were a medium-dark blue and were accompanied by similar stripes on either side of the car, they started right behind the lights and went over the front fenders and doors then turned up sharply to go over the rear quarter panel and were eliminated by the rear windshield.

The windows themselves were tinted blue to match the stripes and the headlights had a blue tint as well. The car had no spoiler but it didn't need one, most of the cars weight was concentrated towards the back, the rims on the car were aftermarket twenty-one inch HRE 541R's with a dark chrome finish, they were definitely an eye catcher. The suspension had been lowered and there were skirts under both doors and bumpers to add to the look. The hood was stock, with the standard hood scoop to let the engine breath. Rachael had ordered a special liquid cooling system to make sure her engine was protected this being a desert city and she was going to be driving the car hard. All in all, Rachael was very happy with the result.

"So what's the damage Mac?" She asked the man.

"Two-hundred twenty thousand" Mac replied.

Rachael pulled out a checkbook and made out a check for a quarter million. "I trust you can take care of the paperwork with the insurance and everything?"

"No problem little lady" Mac said, taking the check.

None of the racers in the Underground had their cars registered with the DMV, at least not the racers that were serious about it; special payoffs were made to that department of the government. They did however, have them insured with an agency that was within the Underground itself, it didn't have a name but it acted very much like you're everyday insurance company, except the premiums were far higher what with an average of two totaled cars every single day this branch of the Underground had to stay alive somehow.

Mac handed Rachael the keys and she all too willingly took them. She stepped in and found the interior had been modified only slightly, the seats had been swapped out for black racing seats with blue seams to match the outside look, the roll cage was also nicely discreet, one-inch tubing was used for the cage so it surrounded the driver completely without taking up any space.

Rachael turned the key and the monster came alive, the engine was packing so much raw torque that simply turning it on made the car shift like you were revving the engine, this little feature only made Rachael fall more in love with it. She shifted into first and drove out of the shop, heading for the desert.


	17. New Car, New Plan, New Rules

Chapter 17: New Car, New Plan, New Rules

* * *

As soon as Rachael cleared the city limits she decided to find out what her new car could do. The highway she was on was about as remote as they come, nothing but cacti and Joshua bushes to keep you company for quite a ways. "Last gas for one-hundred fifty miles…" Rachael read as she passed a gas station with such a sign next to it.

She was at seventy; she checked her rear-view, nobody behind her so she slowed to a complete stop, put it into neutral and revved the engine. The car was loud; all that horsepower rocked the car violently and nearly made its driver drool. Rachael quickly dropped the clutch and shifted into first, sending the rear wheels into a sudden spiral that lifted the front of the car, the front wheels included, off the ground a good four or five inches. The car moved forward on its two back wheels for close to one-hundred feet before the front end came back down, sending the tachometer to lower RPMs for barely a second before it shot back up and Rachael shifted into second at forty-three miles an hour. The tach's needle made its way back to six-thousand revolutions per minute at eighty-four MPH and Rachael went into third. five-hundred fifty feet later the tach hit six-thousand again, this time at one-hundred twenty-six so Rachael shifted into fourth.

Looking ahead, Rachael spotted a lone car going in her direction, she eased the wheel to the left and blasted around the car, she then slowly veered back into her lane. As soon as she had done so she had to up-shift into fifth at one-hundred fifty-seven. At one-hundred eighty-four Rachael shifted into the sixth and final gear and still had nothing but open road ahead of her. The needle on her speedometer tipped past the two-hundred mark and the woman prayed there weren't any rocks or debris in her path because she wasn't going to be able to avoid them, not at these speeds. With her foot pushed to the floor the needle began to slow down, a hair past the two-hundred twenty-five MPH mark is where it stopped and vibrated. Rachael slowed down, her adrenaline was coursing through her like nothing before, the Charger she had didn't compare to this beast.

* * *

Richard was loading more of his vehicles into his semi. He had already put his black, '86 Buick Regal GNX in the trailer and had trouble getting out, the car was so large he had trouble opening the door. He was about to get into his black Ferrari F430 when Garfield drove into his hanger. "When you say you're moving out I guess you mean it" he said.

"Well you know, things happen" Richard said. He was referring more to the incident with Kori rather than to the one with Roy, he wasn't too worried about the law making a move on his property any time soon. "So, what brings you here?"

"I want that Chevelle" Garfield said.

Richard smiled, "And I want to be able to race without having to worry about cops" he paused, looked strait up at Garfield, right into his eyes, and spoke again. "So what are you offering?"

"Four-hundred."

"Cash?"

"What else?" Garfield said as he reached into the back seat of his Barracuda and pulled out a plastic shopping bag. He handed the bag to Richard and the other man looked at the contents, a number of rolls of hundred dollar bills.

Richard nodded, then said, "Good deal, come to my new place and I'll give you the keys." He trusted Garfield enough not to count the money.

Garfield nodded and returned to his Barracuda, he opened the door but before he got inside he asked Richard; "So what was the result of Raven's last race? Did she win or what?"

Richard cleared his throat. "Well the second place finisher argued that since she wasn't in control of her car when she crossed the line that _he_ should've been the winner, we're waiting to hear back from a poll of the spectators, but I'm confident she'll be declared the winner."

"Uh huh…" Garfield mumbled. "Well, let me know eh?"

"Sure will."

* * *

Rachael had used the highway in the desert to get a feel for her car, she had needed to drive back to that gas station and fill up twice as the Challenger got worse gas mileage than the original Hummer. It was worth it however as she had a feeling this car would be her ticket to the top spot in the city.

She had then returned to the desert and right to Richard's safehouse, she entered and went strait to the refrigerator, getting an ice pack to hold against her collarbone. "I wonder how long that's gonna take to heal…" She asked herself, wondering how much her driving was going to hinder it. It couldn't be helped though; it was an annoying pain she'd have to deal with for a while. After sitting down with a bowl of popcorn and a good book Rachael found herself getting tired despite the early hour; she figured she'd find out when the race for the number eight rank was tomorrow.

* * *

Slade could hear Tara pull up his driveway, her Caprice was so loud it was a mystery to him how she kept a low profile. He was at a normal, every day middle class house in the southeast corner of the city, he owned it but did not use it as a safehouse, it was his private sanctuary. The front door opened and he didn't even bother to look up from his book, "The Shining" as Tara walked in. "Can't you just knock, like a normal person?" He asked the blond.

"I could but then I'd be disturbing you from your book" Tara replied.

"You're still disturbing me from my book" Slade said, turning the page.

"Apparently not very much" the girl said.

Slade marked his page and closed the book, setting it on a nearby nightstand. "So, how'd it go?" He asked.

Tara cleared her throat. "My guy took a train" Tara said, "But you knew that already."

Slade diverted his eyes for a second then returned them to Tara. "Yes, yes I did, I thought you said your man was capable?"

"He is, well, was."

"Then why do we have a dead body instead of information?" Slade asked in his usual calm tone.

"Because like all humans he made a mistake, just this one cost him – and us – more than it should've."

"… And us…" Slade repeated, letting the words sink in. "That would be the key phrase Ms. Markov, so my question to you becomes what is going to be done about it?"

The blond didn't scare too easily, much of the reason having to do with her caring very little about human life. But of course when it was her life in question, that changed. Slade was not a man you wanted to get on the bad side of; most of the people on that list are either dead or serving sizeable prison sentences. "I've already taken precautions-" Slade interrupted her.

"I don't want precautions taken Ms. Markov I want the situation fixed. Make the police investigation go away and all traces of it have to disappear" Slade ordered.

Tara didn't like being thought of as a lackey, but she knew this had to be done anyway; she held her tongue and simply nodded, then headed for the door. As soon as she griped the doorknob Slade spoke again. "Tara…" She turned to face him; he was looking her right in the eye. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, after all, like all humans, you just made a mistake. But now you have to fix it."

Tara nodded again and left, got into her car and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed a number and after a few rings a man answered on the other end of the line. "Mike, it's Terra, I need you to make something disappear…"

* * *

Rachael awoke to Richard's voice in the distance. When you did what she did for a living you learned how to stay alert even when asleep. She listened carefully, after a few seconds she determined he was on the phone.

"You've gotta be kidding me? What happened to it?" He said, after a short pause he then said; "Alright Mike, I appreciate your help."

* * *

"No problem Rich." And Mike hung up. Captain Mike Jensen of the city police was another person on the Underground's payroll; however he took side payments as well from Richard, Tara and Slade. Less than an hour earlier he had recieved a call from Tara asking him to get rid of the incident at the train yard. It took some doing but he managed to slip the evidence box out of the building and to a safe place where he would be returning to after his shift to destroy it. This man was in a delicate place, he made hundreds of thousands of dollars but he had to take extreme risks to get it, if he were to ever get caught his life would be over, possibly literally.

* * *

Richard hung up and put his phone down. "Son of a bitch, somebody beat me to it" he mumbled to himself.

"Ahem" Rachael said as she approached him from behind.

Richard jumped slightly then turned to face her. "You really shouldn't do that."

"You really shouldn't let your guard down" Rachael replied with a smirk. "What's going on?"

Richard sighed. "My contact in the police can't find the evidence box to Kori's pursuer. So that means somebody on the inside is playing both sides."

Rachael thought for a moment, and then she got a nervous thought. "Rich, you don't think it was Roy do you?"

"No way, even if he fed us a bunch of lies there's no way he'd have access to the evidence locker if he was working narco."

Rachael thought to herself and figured it was a true statement. "So what do you think happened?"

Richard shook his head. "I don't know what happened to the evidence but I'm sure I know who made the call, Tara doesn't want to leave a paper trail."

"So we're back to square one with our security issues?" Rachael asked, not impressed with the situation.

Richard turned his head for a moment, then said; "Maybe not."

* * *

Roy's cell rang, waking him up from a dead sleep, with a groan he answered it. "What?" He asked sleepily.

"How soon can we meet?" Richard asked him.

"Uh…" Roy wondered then figured he'd get this over with. "If you can be here right now that would be good."

"Good" And Richard hung up, as soon as Roy heard the click of the line being severed he heard a knock on his door; he answered to find Richard and Rachael at his door.

"That was fast."

"Well when you said right now I figured I'd give you the courtesy of hurrying" Richard said walking into Roy's abode.

"What'd I do this time?" The redhead asked.

"Not what you did, what you're going to do" Richard said.

"And that is?"

"Sleep with Tara Markov" Rachael informed.

Roy quirked an eyebrow, "Excuse me?" He asked nonchalantly.

"We have a strong feeling that she was behind an incident with Kori a couple days ago. She's going to be our informant, do whatever it takes to pump her for information." Richard said.

"Yeah…" Rachael added. "She's going to open our door to Slade and maybe we can keep the Underground intact."

Roy sighed heavily. "What if I said I wanted out of the Underground? What would happen then?" He asked angrily.

"Well if the Underground doesn't get you the cops will, remember, you're under their thumb too." Richard said.

"Bastards…" Roy said to nobody.

"Just do what you need to Roy, but do it fast" Rachael said as the two visitors motioned to leave.

As soon as the door closed behind them Roy asked himself; "Why am I always the bitch?"


	18. Double Agents

Chapter 18: Double Agents

* * *

It took three days, but Roy managed to track Tara to a local pub. In that time Rachael had achieved the number eight rank on level one with little effort and she was already making plans for the number seven spot. Her Challenger had completely dominated the competition.

He saw her from the doorway; she was seated at the bar, her back facing him. "Mistake number one blondie" Roy mumbled to himself. When you were a fugitive for anything, murder, theft, drugs or even car racing the number one rule when going out in public was to keep aware of your surroundings. "Now how the hell am I supposed to earn her trust?" Roy asked himself. He took a few seconds to conjure up an approach and then walked up to the bar, taking a seat next to Tara. The blond looked at him, shooting daggers with her eyes but then returned to her drink. At least she was following rule number two, stay inconspicuous. "Medium dry vodka martini" He asked of the bartender.

Again Tara looked at him. "You take that shaken Mr. Bond?" She asked him teasingly.

"When I'm in the mood" Roy said, not bothering to look at her.

"And what mood would that be?"

"The mood I get in after I just won a race" Roy replied. "So how do you take it?"

Tara returned to her drink and shrugged. "Depends on what you're talking about taking." That was when Roy looked at her, a surprised look on his face. Tara looked back at him with an evil smirk. "Something I said?"

"Are you drunk?" Roy asked. He wasn't expecting Tara to take to his advances so quickly, particularly when they were so subtle.

"Not yet" she replied.

"And your boyfriend doesn't mind you talking like that to other guys?"

"Who Slade? Ha, he's not exactly my boyfriend, he thinks he is but I just stay close to him because he's a powerful man to know."

"He's also a very dangerous person to know, and even more dangerous to screw with" Roy said to the blond as if she didn't know already.

"Well the screwing only goes so far, at least with him" Tara said.

Roy was beginning to wonder if she was putting on an act. "So what are you saying?"

"Nothing beyond what it sounds like" Tara clarified. She wasn't showing any signs of faking it so she was either sincere or one of the best actors of all time. "Slade has more power than he should have."

That was Roy's ticket in, and he took it. "How so?" He asked, keeping his cool head.

"Pfft, he doesn't play fair; everybody who looks at his rap sheet would know that." Roy listened carefully. "He paid off the chief of police for some extra insurance so that he could get to the top rank of the Underground… After he got rid of his biggest hurdle of course."

The latter comment sparked Roy's interest. "Biggest hurdle?" He asked, more interested than he thought he'd ever be.

Tara placed her drink on the counter hard. "Oh please, you're telling me the whole Underground still doesn't know?" Roy shook his head. "Raven… Raven was his biggest threat so he arranged to have her removed from the scene."

_Removed from the scene? _Roy thought to himself. "You mean that day she was racing and… The cops and that other car…" Tara finished the sentence for him.

"I was the one driving the Lincoln" Tara revealed.

Roy's eyes went wide and his jaw hung agape. This was the last thing he was expecting Tara to say. It took him a few seconds to regain his ability to speak. "So, how did you get away?"

"I didn't, I was arrested… Aiding and abetting they tried to tell me. Slade posted my bail" Tara explained, then took another sip of her drink.

Roy's martini had arrived long ago, but he hadn't even noticed it let alone touched it. "So once Raven was out of the picture he started paying off the local cops to make sure the only obstacles between him and the top rank were the other racers?" He asked.

"Nope, he had already given the Police Chief more than enough money so he could retire to Maui and not long afterward that's exactly what he did, a new Police Chief stepped in and Slade paid him off too" Tara informed.

"So why hasn't this new Chief retired to Maui yet?" Roy queried.

"Slade learned from his mistake and didn't pay this one as much." Roy nodded. "He started paying off the cops themselves when Raven came back; it threw everything he'd worked towards into jeopardy."

"I see" Is all Roy could think to say.

"Heh, its funny how one puny little girl could cause such a mess" Tara mused to herself.

"But Raven hasn't even been chased yet" Roy pointed out.

"Oh believe me; it won't be much longer before she'll be the only thing on the five-ohs mind."

Roy was going to have to warn her, although this was going to be a tough story to sell. "So what else is there to know about Slade?"

Tara looked at him strangely, Roy got the impression that she had figured out that he wasn't interested in her, but rather what she knew. "Do you live in a cave? Slade has a mountain of secrets that he only tells his most trusted allies." Maybe she hadn't figured him out.

"Would you be one of those allies?" Roy asked, looking her right in the eyes.

Tara's eyes narrowed and her smirk widened. "I am, but I don't just tell them to anyone…"

The conversation shifted to a flirting session, Tara became buzzed but not to the point of where she was having trouble walking. It wasn't too long before Roy paid for both of their drinks and lead her out to his car, taking her back to the safehouse he had near Victor's. When they arrived Tara locked lips with the redhead, taking him off guard. _What the hell is this?_ He asked himself.

Nobody knew it, but Tara had always had a bit of thing for Roy. She kept it to herself, but now that he appeared to be taking an interest in her she wasn't going to waste time. They made their way to the small twin sized bed that Roy kept here, stripping as they went.

They both lost track of how many times they went at it, but it was quite a few. When dawn broke they both were like glazed donuts, completely spent on energy, they only lay next to each other in the nude.

"So…" Roy queried. "What else does Slade have buried in his back yard?"

Tara looked disappointed. "Oh, do we have to talk about him? I'd much rather talk about us." She was definitely sober by this point, meaning her feelings were true. Roy felt bad about deceiving her like this.

"There could be a lot of us in the future, but I for one would like to get Slade off of his high horse, any ideas how I could do that?"

Tara laughed quietly. "Well if either of us are going to be taking that top rank it's gonna be me" She teased, however Roy sensed she was serious, at least to a degree.

"Alright then, how?" He queried.

"Well first off we're gonna need to do it again" she said with a grin.

"Again?" Roy asked, not exactly thrilled. They'd been at it for hours and he wasn't sure if he had anything left.

"Oh yeah" Tara said, getting on top of him.

* * *

Rachael woke up late, almost noon and she had no idea why she had slept so long. She got up and made her way to the "kitchen" to fix herself some breakfast, or maybe lunch, it didn't matter much to her at the moment.

Richard was already up. "Sleep well?" He asked, not looking up from the newspaper.

"A little too well" Rachael replied.

"Well I've got some news" Richard said in monotone, leaving Rachael to wonder if it was of the good or bad variety.

"Hm?"

"Victor got caught by the cops."

Rachael made a look of shock. "Are you serious?" Richard nodded. "How?"

"He was racing, spike strips got him after he lost, overall a pretty shitty night for him." Richard said with little emotion.

"Are we going to do anything about it?" Rachael asked.

"I let everybody know, we're all gonna meet tomorrow and see if there's anything we can do."

Rachael couldn't have predicted Victor getting caught in a thousand years, and she didn't think any of the other racers could've either for that matter. "You don't think he's gonna… Tell them anything do you?" She asked, afraid of the answer.

"I wouldn't think so, Victor is a pretty loyal guy" Richard said.

"So is Roy" Rachael suggested.

"So _was_ Roy" Richard corrected, venom in his tone.

"He's helping us isn't he?"

"So he says."

Rachael shook her head; Richard wasn't keeping an open mind at the moment. She walked over to the counter and searched the cabinets, wondering to herself what had happened. Prior to that night months ago, Rachael and Richard had been in a very serious relationship, they had both saved each other's butts more times than they could count and after each close call they savored each others company in a variety of ways, from the mundane going to a movie and/or to dinner to the… Well, more adult ways of showing affection. She missed those times in the months she was away and now that she was back it seemed Richard had cut a cold turkey on it. _Could he have met somebody else?_ She thought to herself. It was a depressing suggestion but for all she knew it could be true.

* * *

"Can we talk about Slade now?" Roy asked through deep breaths.

"Well, I guess so…" Tara said, she was spent too; however her stamina was greater than Roy's, a rare find in a human being. "The best way to get him out of the picture is to kill him."

"Is that so?" Roy said in monotone. "If it were that easy somebody would've done it by now."

"You don't think people haven't tried? He never goes anywhere without a Kevlar vest" Tara explained.

"Any way to do it without a bullet?" The redhead queried.

"The only other way is to beat him in a race, and I don't think that Charger of yours is gonna be enough."

"If my Charger isn't enough then your Caprice certainly isn't either."

"I don't recall saying it was" Tara said smugly.

"And what are we gonna do about that?"

"Slade got by on sabotaging a lot of cars, most recently Richard's Lamborghini and for that matter the rest of his cars that he keeps at his airport. I say we fight fire with fire."

"I'm not a cheater" Roy said, disgust in his voice.

"What's the only way to out swim an Alligator?" Tara asked.

"Are you from Louisiana?" Roy asked in all seriousness.

Tara rolled her eyes. "To swim faster than the guy next to you."

"And the point of this reference is…?"

"Tag team him; have two racers work together to slow him down, his Ferrari is too fast to beat strait-up."

"That would be a great idea except for one minor detail..." Roy said, getting the blond's attention. "Top rank races are one on one, it's illegal to bring in a third racer."

"You're creative Roy, you should be able to think of something" She said as she got up and began to dress herself.

"Going somewhere?" Roy asked.

"Yup, you're taking me back to my car."

"I am?"

"You better, or I think I'm going to have to screw you again."

Roy was in no shape to being doing that for a while. "Okay let's go."


	19. In the Crosshairs Part One

Chapter 19: In the Crosshairs Part One

* * *

Rachael drove up to the starting line and parked; she had just filled her tank and was ready to tackle the number seven spot on level one. Walking around, she noticed that the competition was beginning to get stiffer, five opponents, all with very nicely tricked out rides.

The first driver was a young man, probably not even out of his teens yet. His weapon of choice was 2003 Dodge Intrepid SXT, the predecessor to the new Charger. It was arctic silver with a custom hood scoop, rims, spoiler, bumpers and side skirts. The car had a custom suspension Rachael saw as it was sitting only about two inches off the ground and this complemented the blue neon glow emanating from underneath it. Under the hood Rachael couldn't see but she knew it wasn't anything that was going to be a pushover.

Competitor number two was a young woman, probably mid twenties with long blond hair. She had opted to drive an '03 Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, a four-seater Ferrari. It was an attractive medium blue with only a simple black stripe across both sides originating front the front wheel well. The car had its standard rims and nothing else to write home about, at least not on the outside, this driver was also not showing under her hood.

Another woman was vying for the number seven rank tonight, though this one was a bit older. She was still pretty, an attractive figure and curly dark brown hair but Rachael put her in the early thirties age range, in the Underground that was old for a woman to be racing. "Damn stereotypes" Rachael mused to herself as she observed this racer's car. An '02 Hyundai Tiburon, yellow with sky blue stripes across the sides and hood and a pink-haired anime character Rachael didn't recognize. _"A little er… flamboyant, don't you think? Even for a woman"_ she thought to herself. This driver however was taking the road less traveled by smart racers and did have her hood open, Rachael peered inside. The standard six cylinder topped out with a high-end fuel injection system, custom wiring, a radiator better than those found on Ferrari's and a nitrous injection system. She took a closer look; behind the block was the transmission which had also been modified with a custom driveshaft however that was all Rachael could tell by looking from the outside in, who knows what kind of special fluids this racer was using.

The fourth racer was another young man driving a purple 1968 Plymouth Barracuda. One downside to this car was that it was not the HEMI version however that doesn't mean that it was packing a sizable power plant. There were no outside modifications at all except his headlights were tinted a deep violet to match the car's color. Once again, Rachael was left to wonder what kind of upgrades this car had been outfitted with. "Another sleeper, it has to be" Rachael said to herself.

Racer number five was yet another young man, making this an even three on three boys verses girls race. His car was a Dodge Viper SRT10 hardtop; five spoke racing rims with dual roof scoops a very large spoiler and a classic pig-nose hood scoop. The car was dark silver with two dark blue racing strips down the middle, it screamed "street racer" at everybody who caught sight of it.

* * *

Roy had just dropped Tara off at her car, she told him to meet her at a place called "Tiny's Gas" in the northwestern quadrant of the city. Now he had to get the information he had learned to his real allies. He jumped into his Charger and peeled out, weaving in and out of traffic as if he was being chased by the cops. "Come on, come on" he mused. His watch wasn't being kind to him right now as he saw the seconds tick by, he didn't know Rachael was already at her next race and by the way Tara made it sound, this was going to be the race that put the heat on her, more than she'd be able to handle.

It took him eleven minutes to get to Richard's airport, which he found was empty. "Dammit" he cursed as he pulled out his cell phone, dialing Richard.

"Roy, what the hell are you doing calling me?" Richard demanded.

"I don't have time to come and find you, I've got stuff to tell Raven, and I need to tell her now" Roy informed.

"Well she's not here right now, she's got an appointment."

"Appointment" was the term for race that was to be used over the phone. The purpose for the substituted word was to avoid any incrimination by anybody who might be listening.

"Now?! No, you've got to stop her, don't let her go!" Roy yelled, becoming panicked.

"Well Roy it's too late, she already left like ten minutes ago, what the hell is so important that she needs to know right now?"

"Rich you've gotta call her and tell her to pull out, she's walking into a trap" the redhead said, calming down slightly.

"Well I haven't bothered to ask her for her new phone number so you're gonna have to go and tell her yourself, she's on Nahattan" Richard said, not expressing too much concern.

Roy hung up on his friend and dashed out to his car, he was going to have to sprout wings if he was going to make it to the Nahattan track in time.

* * *

"This ought to be interesting" Rachael said to nobody as she returned to her own car only to find several people, most of them men around her age to be gawking over it. "Can you folks be helped?" She asked of the group, taking on an aggressive attitude.

Most of them turned around, the men of the group making wolf whistles and similar primitive mating calls and the women shooting glares. "Hey baby, what's up? This your ride?" One black man asked of Rachael, she estimated his weight to be around three-hundred fifty pounds.

"It is" Rachael answered.

"I don't think a pretty little thing like you should be driving in such a dangerous sport, wouldn't want to mess up that ass" the man said.

It's not like Rachael wasn't asking for this kind of attention with what she was wearing. Black low-rise Capri pants with a navy blue midriff tank top that revealed her well-toned abs along with a small portion of her red thong and was accented by a black leather jacket that did nothing to cover her exposed stomach. The pants were accessorized by silver chains hanging from the pockets as was the jacket. "Why don't you let me worry about my ass? And I think you should start thinking about your own."

"Oooooh shit, this kitten has claws… I like that" The man said. Rachael rolled her eyes and made her way around the large man to get to her car. "Oh what's that? Looks like we got a cold fish ladies and gentlemen!" The man yelled for all to hear.

A childish "Oooooooo" spread across the nearby crowd, Rachael stopped in her tracks and then turned to face the man, one eyebrow quirked.

She walked up to him and looked him right in the eye. "Cold fish you think eh? Well…" Rachael began; she touched his crotch with her right hand. "Maybe we got off to the wrong start…" She said, moving her hand up to the bottom of his chin, caressing it with her finger. "Or maybe…" She brought her right knee up to his groin, putting as much force into the blow as she could. "… You just didn't get the message" she mocked as the man fell to the ground holding himself and crying out in pain.

The woman turned and the crowd behind her split in two, making her a pathway to her car.

The race was going to begin in three rows of two, the Ferrari on the far right with the Tiburon behind her, Rachel next to the Ferrari and the Viper behind her and the Barracuda next to Rachael leaving the Intrepid behind him.

* * *

Roy flew past a semi truck and rounded a corner, catching sight of a group of people about a quarter mile down the road. He was already at sixty, he floored it.

* * *

The race began and Rachael caught an early lead, popping a shallow wheelie off the line. The Tiburon took second and the Barracuda claimed third for now.

Roy blared his horn, getting the attentions of the crowd in front of him, just in time for most of them to get out of his way. One male spectator however wasn't fast enough and ended up getting clipped by the front passenger side quarter panel of the four-thousand pound car, he was sent flying through the crowd, his left hip and leg completely destroyed.

Roy didn't even notice the thump; he only kept accelerating, trying to catch the cars in front of him.


	20. In the Crosshairs Part Two

* * *

Chapter 20: In the Crosshairs Part Two

* * *

The six racers hadn't noticed the new addition. Rachael took the first corner followed by her opponents, then by Roy. Corner two came along and Rachael still had her lead, the Barracuda had overtaken second and the Ferrari had taken third, pushing the Tiburon into fourth due to a poorly performed turn.

Roy was right behind the Intrepid, who was in last place. Somewhere around the one-hundred forty MPH mark Roy got behind the Intrepid and drafted, then dodged around him and darted forward. The Viper was his next obstacle.

* * *

Rachael still hadn't noticed Roy's intrusion. She pressed on, taking every corner skillfully and continually pulling further and further ahead.

Roy got behind the Viper and tried to pass on the left but the driver of the Dodge didn't allow it. He tried to pass on the right but was blocked again. "Dammit!" Roy yelled as he floored the gas, ramming the newer car from behind. The energy and motion laws were put into effect as the much lighter car was sent into a spin off the road and into somebody's front yard. Roy pushed his forty year old car to its limit, rounding corners as if he were driving a rally car. He came up on the racer in fourth, which now was the Ferrari and tried to pass, he got beside the female driver but she performed one of the most boneheaded moves Roy had ever seen, she swerved into him. The Ferrari never had a chance, the fiberglass crunched under the impact, part of the back fender cutting into the tire, throwing the balance of the car to the wind and causing it to violently veer to the right, up the curb and into a parked SUV.

Rachael was out of sight by now and Roy was being held too far behind by the other racers. He took his mind off driving for a three second thought; the Nahattan track went through a very ritzy part of the city, for the most part following Nahattan Street but at the end of the road the track made a sharp right and then another sharp right down a long back road, Ceever Street, where the finish line stood. The redhead spotted a small road that worked as a bit of a shortcut between Nahattan and Ceever, though using it in a race was forbidden. Since he wasn't participating in the race however, he could take it without worry, hoping that he would be able to cut Raven off. He drifted onto the road, the rear of his car sliding over the grass and taking out a row of trash barrels. He shifted back up into third and pounded the accelerator; he was going to have to get in front of her and pray that she can stop in time.

Fifty feet from the intersection between the shortcut and Ceever Street Roy saw Rachael drive by. "Fuck" He cursed as he drifted onto Ceever.

The girl had a comfortable lead, none of the remaining racers could be seen in her rear view, but Roy's car could. "What the…?" She asked herself, not realizing who it was or what he was doing.

Roy flashed his headlights and blared his horn not knowing that he already had Rachael's attention. She however, perceived Roy as a threat and instead of stopping, accelerated forward, Roy saw this. "No! Dammit Raven STOP!" He yelled to himself. He put his car into fourth and accelerated, attempting to close the increasing gap between the two cars but wasn't having much luck. He hit his nitrous and his speedometer jumped thirty miles an hour but Rachael was still pulling away. "Damn" he said, her car was much faster than his and he was finding that out the hard way right now.

Only a few seconds later Rachael had crossed the finish line, stopped her car, and collected her winnings. Roy sped over and came to a screeching halt right next to her. He jumped out of his car and yelled "Raven! Get out of here!"

"Roy? What the hell were you doing?" She asked.

"I can't explain right now but you're-" He was cut off by cops converging on the group. "Run!" He yelled and was just about to follow his own advice but his car drove away without him, somebody stole it.

"Fuck, get in, let's go!" Rachael yelled at the redhead as she got into her own car. Roy followed, jumping into the passenger seat as she peeled out. "What the fuck Roy?! Are you trying to get everybody arrested?!"

"It's not me! It's Slade, he's the one who set you up eight months ago and now he's doing it again!"

"What? How do you know?" Rachael demanded, looking at her passenger.

"Would you pay more attention to the cops!" Roy yelled as Rachael dodged around a police Charger and down a side street. There was a line of police Durango's at the end of the street so Rachael hung a hard left down a driveway and into a back yard, she smashed through a rotted old wood fence and onto a main road only to find two cruisers lying in wait.

"What the fuck! Where did all this heat come from?!" Rachael yelled as she drifted between the two cruisers, turned left into opposing lanes then back into the correct lane. Another cruiser joined the pursuit from a side street as Rachael shifted into fourth and hit one-forty. She followed the road for roughly six blocks before hanging a right onto Springfield Road, she got only a few hundred feet down it before she was forced to stop at a police roadblock. "HOW!?" She yelled in frustration as more cops came in behind her, blocking the way she came. The two looked around; they had at least twenty guns pointed at them, lawmen on the other end of them. "This isn't normal…" Rachael said, shocked. "How the hell are they this organized this fast?"

"It's Slade, Tara told me everything, he's got the Police Chief in his back pocket and he wants you out of the picture" Roy said calmly.

Rachael looked at him, her jaw agape. "Why?" She asked simply.

"He thinks you're the only racer who beat him."

"Me? What about Rich… and Toni, not to mention you and-" Roy interrupted her.

"Later, right now these pigs are trying to sneak up on your door…" He said, pressing the 'lock' button on his side, locking the doors. "There's a small dirt road right over your left shoulder and I'm seeing that it's not blocked, spin around and take it."

A male police officer suddenly appeared beside Rachael's door, he tried to open it but Roy had locked it. Rachael didn't hesitate, she shifted into first and gunned the engine, blasting forward roughly ten feet then hitting her E-brake and turning sharply to the left, kicking up dirt and small rocks as she did a one-eighty. She released her emergency brake and shot forward, driving right at the dirt road, then disappearing down it. A few cops followed, none of them knowing where the road went.

The road was surprisingly smooth, as if it had been flattened to pave over. "You're going to come out at a dead end road, follow it out to the main road and go right, that road will take you to route ninety-four, follow it out into the desert" Roy said.

Rachael wasn't sure if retreating to the desert would help or hinder, it was open, if they had a helicopter following them there was no way to outrun it and nothing to hide behind. Still, Rachael felt it was their best chance; the cops had the city virtually locked down and she was running out of fuel. She followed the winding dirt road to pavement, then made the right and shot down the road to the highway exit, cruisers still hot on her tail.


	21. In the Crosshairs Part Three

Chapter 21: In the Crosshairs Part Three

I deeply apologize for the long wait for this chapter, life has gotten in the way but as I promised, I will finish this story if it takes until the end of my life (and it just might).

* * *

Rachael's Challenger held the sharp curve to get onto the highway at a steady eighty miles an hour; the police couldn't take the turn as fast. She punched the accelerator and burned pavement as she merged into the light early morning traffic. She swerved around a '98 Tahoe and into the fast lane, shifting into sixth gear in the process. She was approaching the two-hundred MPH zone as the cruisers fell behind, not having a prayer of keeping up. Roy rolled down his window and looked up, searching the sky for helicopters, he saw none. "I think we might be in the clear" He breathed as he put the window back up, windburn evident on his face.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do Roy" Rachael spat.

"I'm sending a text to everybody to meet at Rich's airport tonight; I'll tell everybody everything there."

"Run it by me first" Rachael demanded.

Roy reviewed what he had already told her, which was the majority of what he had learned from Tara. "The only other thing I know is that Slade has a race two nights from tonight against a guy who beat Tara in level three about two weeks ago. They have a system where she's always number two, protecting Slade's top rank but this guy apparently broke through Tara."

Rachael thought for a moment, and then remembered, "Yeah, I was at that race."

They drove for another ten minutes to be sure they had shaken the cops. "Okay… I think we're good" Rachael said just before violently spinning the wheel to the right into the desert sand.

Roy was nearly thrown onto Rachael's lap. "What the hell-"

"Shortcut" Rachael stated simply, six minutes and a pass over a hill later they pulled into Richard's hanger. Rachael got out and looked at her car. "Damn, gonna need a wash…"

"A wash? How about a new suspension?" Roy said as he stumbled out of the car, holding his head.

"I'm not gonna need anything if I don't have any fuel" she said, retrieving a gas can and opening her tank.

"Where's Rich? He wasn't at the airport I assumed he'd be here?" Roy asked, looking around at the massive hanger in awe.

"I'm not sure, he was here when I left…" Rachael answered.

"I see… So this is Rich's desert hideout?"

"Pretty much, it ain't much to look at but it does what we need it to" Rachael said.

"Damn you could fit two 747s in here if you really tried."

"I wouldn't know" Rachael said, calmly lying down on the sofa and turning on the TV.

"You don't seem too concerned about things" Roy pointed out.

"Getting worried doesn't help anything, why don't you send that text and you can explain to everybody why the whole Underground is about to implode."

Roy shook his head and pulled out his cell.

* * *

Victor sat in the interrogation room, the chair and table was bolted to the floor but that was okay, he didn't plan on needing a weapon here. He had been sitting there for nearly an hour, to keep himself occupied he flipped a quarter the police had failed to take from him, tallying how many times it landed on heads and tails.

Finally two men walked in, one of them holding a folder and other holding a paper shopping bag, both of which were placed on the table. Both men were dressed in suits, one a dark grey suit the other a much lighter grey. The man in the dark grey was short, only about five foot seven, had a bit of a belly on him and was balding. The other man was much more respectable looking, he was of Hispanic decent and stood roughly six feet tall with a lean figure and a goatee.

"Well, well, Mister Victor Stone…" The shorter man began, walking over to Victor's side of the table. "I can't tell you how happy I am to finally meet you… I've been following your career on my streets for some time."

The taller man spoke. "Mister Stone I am Detective Mollet, this is Detective Phelps, no relation to Michael Phelps."

Victor looked at the taller man. "Pleased to make your acquaintance" he said sarcastically.

"I'm sure" Mollet said. "I'm also sure you know why you're here so we can skip that and go right to the good part."

"Oh joy" Victor commented.

"You're looking at a lot of jail time Stone…" Phelps informed grabbing for the folder and opening it. "Let's see… Grand theft auto, false government I.D.'s, smuggling, and I can't count how many traffic violations… You're going away for a long time."

"Or…" Mollet began. "We can make all of this go away if you're willing to help us." Victor's facial expression didn't change. "We're all well aware of this whole underground organization you're involved in and quite frankly we want it to go away."

"Wow, that's too bad" Victor said without a smile.

"We're willing to wipe your record clean in exchange for everything you know, names, locations, times, everything."

Phelps bent over behind Victor so his mouth was right next to his ear. "Pretty sweet deal if you ask me."

"It is a pretty sweet deal" Victor agreed. "But there's just one problem, I don't know anything that could help you."

Mollet sat down on the table and turned his upper body to face the seated man. "Oh I beg to differ Mr. Stone, we've been following you in every sense of the word, we know all about your little meetings at Clancy Airfield, we know where your little hideout is and we know about your rank in the Underground."

Phelps stood up straight. "Would you like to try again?"

Victor shifted in his seat slightly. "As far as these "meetings" you speak of go, it's just me and a few friends playing some cards, nothing more."

"Is that a fact?" Mollet asked and Victor nodded. "So Richard Grayson isn't involved in the Underground in any way?"

"Not to my knowledge" Victor lied.

"Well we can come back to that" Phelps said walking to the other side of the table. "You're ranked in a number two spot aren't you Vic? On level one I believe is the term?"

Victor kept his poker face. "Am I? Hm, well, I just show up to some events, I didn't know there was a ranking system" he lied once again.

"So you admit to racing illegally?" Mollet queried.

"Did I say I raced in those events?" Mollet redirected his eyes. "Yeah I didn't think so."

* * *

Garfield made a right turn into the parking garage behind one of the city's many hotels and pulled into an empty space. He stepped out of his Barracuda and walked to the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor of the garage. Once he got to the top he walked to the far side and then looked to his right, where he saw the yellow 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer with blue tear decals on the sides that he was looking for. He stepped into the passenger seat and closed the door. "You have issues with the dramatic you do know that right?" Garfield said to the man in the driver's seat.

"Well you know I like things that look good" Wally replied.

"What's going on?" Garfield queried.

"You're not the only one who wants Raven to disappear…"


	22. Back Together

Chapter 22: Back Together

To my fans: I deeply apologize for the long delay in getting this chapter up. I want to dedicate this story to a very close friend of mine who passed away on January 25, 2009 at the age of 19.

Rest in peace Amethyst… I will miss you and I will always love you…

* * *

Richard blasted around the corner in his Ferrari, two police Chargers right behind him. He hit the right paddle on his steering column, shifting the car into fourth gear and accelerated forward. "What the fuck is going on with all this heat?" He asked himself aloud. He flew down the street at a dicey 145MPH before he heard loud smash and felt himself be whipped around facing in the wrong direction and at a dead stop. A few seconds passed before he shook his head to clear it and found himself to be looking at the two cruisers that had been chasing him along with a police Durango with a damaged front end. The cops were yelling something over the blow horn that Richard couldn't understand but he was able to put two and two together and figure the Durango had come out of a side street and hit the back end of his car.

The cops were still yelling at him, not knowing how badly damaged his car was, Richard used his paddle shifters to get into first and floored it. The car responded and began to pull forward, he pulled his emergency brake and turned the wheel to the right, spinning his car around one-hundred eighty degrees and began running once again.

He made a left turn and found himself in a construction site. His car was responding just fine so far and that was a good thing because his pursuers had not abandoned their efforts. The driver of the exotic looked around and saw a way to end the pursuit; he veered to the left and drove under a tall scaffolding, hitting the metal supports for it in the process and throwing it off balance. The nine story scaffolding tipped over in the loudest crash of twisting metal Richard had ever heard, but it did the trick, The Durango and one of the Chargers were crushed by the falling structure and the remaining Charger was forced to stop or crash into the wreckage. Richard didn't waste any time, he floored it towards the desert.

* * *

"So let me get this straight… You want me to tell you where Raven's safe house is so you can tell the cops?" Garfield asked, already knowing the answer.

"Pretty simple plan don't you think?" Wally said.

Garfield looked at the other man with an 'are you serious?' facial expression. He was about to say something when he heard a crashing sound, not a car crash, something bigger. "What was that?" Both men said at the same time. They jumped out of the car and sprinted to the edge of the parking garage, two blocks down they saw the devastation, a large cloud of dust next to the new office building that was being built.

"What the hell?" Wally said.

"Who cares, that's going to attract attention we don't need, and we'll finish this conversation later" Garfield said before shaking the man's hand and jogging to the elevator to return to his car. Before he turned the old car on he reached inside his glove box, pulling out a mini police scanner and listened in on the activity.

"How could you lose her?! You incompetent fuck, you're fired!" Yelled a very enraged male voice.

"Sergeant we need EMS at the new Guilde building ASAP, we had a scaffolding collapse on a couple cruises and we've got some bad injuries!" Said a female voice.

"Got paramedics on the way Monica, hang in there" Said a different, much calmer male voice.

"Unit four-forty, I've got a suspicious car that just peeled out of the Bay parking garage, yellow Mitsubishi, I'm gonna stop him" Called another male voice.

"Way to avoid attention Wally…" Garfield mused to himself.

"He's not stopping, I'm gonna need backup on Liberty heading south" Reported that same male voice.

"That's my cue" Garfield said, he started his car and calmly shifted into first, driving out of the parking garage and turning north on Liberty Boulevard.

* * *

Richard pulled into his hanger and was somewhat surprised to see Rachael there. "Rachael! Thank God, I was worried about you with all those cop's swarming around, it was like they were going after everyone at once!"

"Not everyone…" Rachael said.

"Mostly just her" Roy finished as he emerged from the bathroom.

Richard turned around to face Roy upon hearing his voice. Richard approached the redheaded man and punched him in the face. "What the fuck you little prick?! You are working for them aren't you!" Richard yelled at the fallen man. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his P99, pointing it at Roy. "I should kill you right here and now you two-faced, double crossing no good excuse for a backstabber!"

"Richard!" Rachael screamed, getting the man with the gun to look at her.  
"What the fuck is wrong with you?! Ever since I came back it's like you're a completely different person! You never jumped to conclusions like this and always kept an open mind… The Richard I knew would never point a gun at a long-time friend and ally who had been at his side since diapers… You've changed…" And with that, the young woman walked off to her bedroom.

Richard looked at Roy who was still on his back, his nose bleeding. His desire to pull the trigger was gone and his hatred had been replaced with concern for Rachael. He holstered the weapon and said; "You get the couch tonight" Then walked over to the bedrooms.

* * *

He saw that Rachael had left her door cracked, whether it be by lack of caring to close it completely or meant as an invitation Richard didn't know, but he entered anyway. He found Rachael on her bed lying on her stomach; she had hung up her jacket. "Rach?" He asked.

"I didn't hear a gunshot" She replied.

Richard walked over to the bed and took a seat on it. "You were right about what you said…"

Rachael paused. "I know I was" She groaned.

"I'm not sure what I can do to make it up to you… I've been nothing but a complete jackass these past few weeks…"

Rachael turned on her back and rested her upper body on her elbows. "What happened? What happened in the months that I was gone? What made you change?"

Richard diverted his eyes to the floor. "I guess I just changed with the Underground… Slade taking over… The Police changing hands, the unions starting to get worked up about the illegal races… It's just been a downhill road."

"How can we bring it back?"

"I don't think we can, things will never be the same no matter what happens."

Rachael thought for a moment. "Maybe with the Underground… But why can't we be what we were before?"

Richard looked at her, one eyebrow quirked. "I'm sorry?"

Rachael sat herself up and brought her face inches from Richard's. "I miss what we had before… I want it back…" She said in a whispered voice. She moved her head closer and touched her lips to the black haired man's. She tried to kiss him and at first he did nothing, but quickly gave into his lust and embraced the woman he had been separated from for months. Rachael let herself fall back into the bed, dragging Richard with her. His hands began to wander, starting with her cheeks and making their way to her shoulders, then over her breasts...

The lovemaking lasted hours, the seperation the two racers had experienced only made it more intense, exhausting both of them.

* * *

"FUUUUUUCCCCCK!" Wally yelled as he spun his Lancer around to try and come back the way he came only to find himself completely surrounded. Police Chargers and Durango's all around. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! YOU FUCKS! I'M NOT GOING DOWN THAT EASY!!!!" He yelled as he stomped on the gas, launching the car forward and right into the side of a police cruiser, demolishing it.

The airbags didn't deploy, Wally's head slammed into the steering wheel so hard it bent the wheel forward and knocked him out.

Police approached and looked inside the car to see its driver motionless. "Moron" One officer commented as he opened the door.

* * *

Wally came to; his head felt as if it had been split open. After he was fully awake he found himself in a jail cell. "The fuck…?"

"Well done West, that was some escape attempt, T-boning a Charger." Said a voice from behind him, he turned around to see Victor Stone lying down on the cot in the back of the cell. "Just make sure to keep your mouth shut while you're in here, you don't a reputation for subtly."

* * *

Up and out, hope to get back into things.


	23. Fish in a Barrel Part One

Chapter 23: Fish in a Barrel Part 1

* * *

Richard awoke, finding Rachael's sleeping and naked figure next to him, he glanced at the clock, one in the afternoon. He got out of the bed and dressed himself, he then walked out to the couch, finding Roy watching TV, specifically the news. "Something interesting happening?" He asked the redhead.

Roy turned to see his host who nearly killed him the previous night, then turned back to the TV. "Yeah, that cop ambush is still going on".

"No shit? They catch anybody?"

"Oh yeah…" Roy began matter-of-factly. "They got West, they got Kori, they got Karen-" Richard cut him off.

"They got Kori?!" Richard exclaimed in disbelief.

"Yeah, about an hour ago, they got a shitload of racers, from all the ranks, all the levels" Roy explained.

"What about Gar and Toni?"

Haven't seen or heard about Gar, but Toni is trying to get away right now".

"Right now and you're just sitting on your ass?!" Richard yelled. "What the fuck Roy, some ally you are!"

"What the hell am I supposed to do?! There are a thousand cops out there!"

Richard didn't answer; he threw a pair of shoes on his feet and bolted to his already damaged Ferrari, screeching his tires as he drove out of the hanger.

Richard's sudden departure woke Rachael up; she quickly dressed herself and rushed out of her bedroom to see what was going on. "Roy!" She called across the hanger.

"What?"

"Where's Rich going?"

"I assume to help Toni; she's being chased by the cops on Roach Street".

"And you're just sitting on your ass?! What the hell kind of ally are you?!" She yelled before rushing to her Challenger and peeling out after Richard.

Roy rolled his eyes. "Fuck, amazing how influential that guy is". He got up and walked over to the counter, pulling out a couple slices of bread and a jar of mayo. "Now where the fuck does he keep his knives?" Roy asked himself, opening random drawers. He opened one drawer to find it full of car keys, he paused and looked at them, he quickly noticed one marked "Charger". He looked over at Richard's '69 Dodge, then back to the keys. "Can't beat 'em… May as well join 'em" he said, grabbing the key and sprinting towards the car.

* * *

Richard turned on his police scanner. "Still in pursuit of Monetti, she's a slippery one Serg" a female voice said.

"Jesus they even know who they're chasing…" Richard thought to himself.

"She's making a left on Freedom Trail…" The same female voice said.

Richard slammed on his brakes, bringing his exotic car to a dead stop from eighty miles an hour in only sixty feet. He hit his parking brake and spun his rear wheels, doing a one-eighty and peeling out back the way he came, taking a quick left he had passed about half a block ago.

Rachael and Roy had heard the same broadcast on their scanners, being in different places they began to approach Freedom Trail from two different directions.

"Come on, come on, north or south?" Rachael begged of the scanner, she was on Genesis parkway, a street parallel to Freedom, but heard no sirens, she wasn't sure if she was heading to or from the pursuit.

"Now east on Johnson… No, back north on Genesis" Came the same female voice.

Rachael snapped to attention, the pursuit was coming right at her.

Roy heard the same thing, he was to the west of the chase, he shifted into fourth and floored it.

Richard was pushing ninety when he saw Toni's car drive by at the end of the street, followed by at least eight police cars. He drifted left, heading north behind the cops and planned his next move.

Rachael now saw the pursuit coming her way; she hit the brakes and drifted into a U-turn, accelerating next to Toni's Ferrari.

Roy saw Freedom Trail right in front of him, he began to drift to the right, thinking the pursuit was north of him when Toni and Rachael raced by. He continued to drift, sideswiping one of the police Durango's with the four-thousand pound Charger. The driver of the top heavy SUV lost control and tipped over, rolling violently to the side of the road as a police Charger slammed into Roy's back end, taking that cop out of the chase as well.

"Be advised we have two cruisers down, two more racers have been targeted" A male voice said over the radio, only to have Richard pass by him on the left. "Make that three racers! Three more have been engaged for a total of four! We need backup!"

"On its way, they're about one minute out and we're setting up a roadblock" a different male voice said.

The four racers heard the roadblock announcement. Richard, having joined the front of the pack reached for the center glove box and pulled out a walkie-talkie. "Roadblock, everybody take the next left and head for Liberty!"

The other three heard Richard's message and made the quick left. Richard looked back to see one of the cops wipe out on the sudden turn. One of the other cops reporting the change in direction over the radio.

A right, then a left, and the four racers were on Liberty Boulevard. It was now almost two in the afternoon, there was little traffic at this hour which made for high-speed driving. Rachael was in front, Toni was only a few feet behind her, Roy was to the right and behind both girls and Richard was in Roy's left blind spot. The four cars weaved around the few vehicles in their way, the cops still in tow.

Richard looked back again. "Fuck…" He muttered. The backup the cops called for had arrived in the form of another two-dozen cruisers and a helicopter. "Jesus, how the hell are we getting out of this one?" He asked himself, grabbing for his radio. "We got bacon, lots of it, if we want to burn it we have to split up".

Toni reached for her own radio. "Rich, I've been trying to lose these bastards for almost three hours! I'm tired!" She whined.

Rachael chimed in. "Rich, you and Roy split, I'll stay with Toni".

Richard thought to himself for a moment, they had open road in front of them and while their cars were fast, they couldn't outrun the chopper if they stayed together. "Roy, take your next right, Toni and Rachael take your next left, I'll keep going straight, go!"

Roy had no problem doing what he was ordered; he drifted right onto the next street.

Rachael and Toni also agreed with the idea, and went left.

Conflicted, Richard stayed straight for another five blocks before he made a right.

It seemed to work, thirty-two police cruisers were chasing four cars, eight followed Roy, ten followed Richard and fourteen went after Toni and Rachael, the chopper stayed with the girls.

* * *

Richard drifted left, then right again, knowing the Charger's weren't as nimble. Unfortunately all the cops made the S-turn and stayed on him, he looked around, nothing he saw could help him right away so he kept moving, hoping that his teammates were faring better than him.

* * *

Roy had made another right as soon as he made the first one off the Boulevard. He was now heading back the way they came. He turned left and watched his rear-view; the cops were still on him so he made another right turn only to be staring down the headlights of an oncoming semi truck. The redhead slammed on the brakes and swerved around the large truck, missing it by the smallest margin possible. The two lead cruisers weren't so lucky, the first one plowed into the truck and the second one plowed into the first one. Roy pushed forward, two down, six to go.

* * *

Toni downshifted to make a left, the execution was less than perfect however as her fatigue was starting to get to her, she hopped the curb and the rear passenger side fender and tire of her nearly half-million dollar car struck a mailbox, sending her spinning.

"Fuck!" Rachael yelled. She spun herself around so her passenger door was right next to Toni's driver door. She leaned over and opened it. "Get in!" She screamed.

Toni stumbled out of her disabled exotic and into the modern muscle car. Rachael spun her car around again just in time to continue running from the police.

"All units, Monetti's car is disabled, she's now running with Roth!" A male voice called over the police radio.

Rachael looked over at her police scanner and wondered how the cops knew who they were chasing. "What the fuck?" She said.

"The bloody bastards know who we are, all of us, Victor must've flipped!" Toni said.

"No…" Rachael began, "It's Slade, he's been trying to turn the entire Underground inside out ever since I got back".

"Why?" Toni asked, "If he destroys the organization he loses his rank".

"And if he doesn't he loses his rank anyway, at least this way he can go out as the city champion".

Rachael darted right and saw a way to get a few flies off her. A billboard was under construction and the temporary supports could be knocked away easily. She veered to the right, clipping the wood support bars and causing the board to come crashing down, flattening half of the cruisers chasing her.

Of the remaining seven cops, three stopped to help their felled comrades, leaving Rachael with only four cruisers left.

"Three two six to base we just lost a shitload of manpower, we need more backup for Roth" A male voice said.

"That's a negative, there are no additional units available" came a female voice.

"What do you mean there are no more units?! The entire force is supposed to be on this girl!" The same male voice exclaimed.

"All of our other units are either disabled or keeping other racers busy, you're going to have to work with what you've got" The woman in dispatch said.

Rachael turned left then made a quick right down an alley, she couldn't go fast because of the dumpsters and other debris scattered across the narrow alley. She maneuvered around them, the cops following but having less luck avoiding the obstacles, chock it up to lesser driving skills, a longer wheelbase, or a mixture of the two, but it was allowing Rachael to get some distance. She exited the alley and went left, she was now on a four-lane road and traffic was strangely heavy, she weaved throughout the lanes, cutting cars off and occasionally passing over the double yellow. The police matched her move for move, but were sluggish, they fell further and further behind as Rachael got herself into a rhythm, however she was brought to an uncomfortable stop when an eighteen wheeler stopped in the middle of an intersection. She slammed on the brakes and spun her car to face the opposite direction of the semi, her Challenger only inches from the trucks trailer.

That was all the cops needed, they converged on her position, blocking the way she came. She looked in front of her, then behind, she seemed to be trapped, the truck didn't have enough clearance for her to drive under due to a spare tire rack and there seemed to be an odd traffic pattern blocking her forward and back, she wondered if the cops had arranged this or if they had just gotten lucky.

"Please tell me you have firepower?" Toni asked nervously.

Rachael looked at the Italian-British woman beside her, then pushed a button on the driver's side door. A panel opened to reveal an MP7 submachine gun hidden inside. She pulled the cocking mechanism back on the weapon and set it to full automatic fire, then handed the outlawed weapon to Toni. "I only have three magazines, make them count".

Toni nodded and rolled down her window, as soon as it was fully down she pointed the assault weapon at the cops and held the trigger down. The MP7, being a personal defense weapon, was not accurate over medium and long ranges, so its use in this situation was only to spray bullets. Eighteen rounds were fired at the four police cars, sending the seven officers ducking for cover, none of them were hit. The remaining twelve rounds were pointed in front of the Challenger, and sprayed at the civilian vehicles blocking its way. That did the trick, the cars moved and Rachael burned rubber before the police could get their bearings.

Toni released the empty magazine and loaded one of the two remaining fresh ones into the weapon. "Where the hell did you get this thing? They've been banned in this country".

"Richard knows a guy, NSA or something, he got it for me." Rachael answered.

The cops were back on her tail and traffic had thinned, she needed to get these last cars off her back so she could regroup with Roy and Richard. "Toni, looks like they didn't get the message the first time…"

"On it" The other girl replied as she pointed the gun out the window and back towards the cops. She didn't want to shoot the officers if it could be helped, instead she aimed for the cruisers radiators, if she could disable those the rest of the car would follow quickly. Firing in quick bursts, Toni was able to hit her mark with the lead cruiser; it began to smoke and lazily veered off the road. The next cruiser was now in her sights, she fired again, two bursts of four rounds and the Charger started to violently shift left and right, hitting an oncoming Ford F350 Superduty and causing the cruiser behind him to slam into it, causing a three-car pileup.

That left only one cop still giving chase, Toni fired again, emptying what was left of that magazine into the Chargers grille and like the first cruiser, hitting the radiator.

Toni pulled her head and arm back into the car. "Alright, now we need get the hell out of here".

"Not yet, we need to find the boys and help them shake whatever's still chasing them, then we need to plan our next move" Rachael explained. She grabbed her personal radio while Toni loaded the final magazine into the MP7. "Rich! Where are you?"


End file.
